Falling! Falling through deep waters, with a horrible sickening sense of
utter helplessness and desolation; nerves, heart, mind--very being
itself--awaited the crash of extinction. A slight jolt, a roaring of
great waters in the air, and a voice, dim, thin and far away!
... In some mysterious way, the sense of sight was joined to that of
sound and hearing. I was surrounded by blackness shot with gleams of
baleful fire, shifting and changing until the black grew gray in furious
eddies, the gray changed into the light of day, and a far-off voice
became loud and insistent.
It was thus that I came to myself after the horror on the edge of the
dizzy void.
The first thing I saw was the face of Juanita. There were tears in her
eyes and her cheeks were brilliant. Then I heard, and even then with a
start, a voice that I had never thought to hear again--the gentle,
tripping accents of Pu-Yi.
"He will do now, Senorita. The doctor said that he would awake from his
sleep with very little the matter except the shock--"
"Juanita!" I cried, and her cool hand came down upon my forehead.
"You are not to excite yourself, dearest," she said.
For a moment or two I lay there in a waking swoon of puzzled but entire
bliss. Then I tried to move my position slightly upon the bed, for I was
lying upon a bed in a large and airy room, and groaned aloud. Every
muscle in my body seemed stretched as if upon the rack, and there was a
pain like a red-hot iron in one ankle.
"It will hurt for a few hours," said Pu-Yi, "but you will shortly be
massaged, Sir Thomas, and then--"
"You!" I cried, "but you are dead! Zorilla got you on the tower
before--before--"
My mind leapt up into full activity. I was once more swaying upon the
edge of infinity with my fingers locked in the bull neck of the
assassin, and my voice died away into a whisper of horror.
"He stunned me, that was all, Sir Thomas. His bullet glanced away from
my head. I came to myself just in time to see you struggling with him
and gripped you just as you were falling off into space. The spirits of
my ancestors were with me."
"And he--Zorilla?"
"Will never trouble us more. But you are not well enough yet to talk.
You are in my hands for the present."
"Do exactly as Pu-Yi says, dear, and remember that all is well."
"Your father?" I gasped--why hadn't I thought of Morse before?
"All is well," she repeated in her low, musical voice, and as I lay
back, trembling once more upon the edge of unconsciousness, her face
left the circle of my vision.
Two deft Chinese _masseurs_ came. I was placed in a hot bath impregnated
with some strong salts. I was kneaded and pummeled until I could hardly
repress cries of pain. I drank a cup of hot soup in which there must
have been some soporific, and sank into a deep, refreshing sleep.
It had been late afternoon when I first came to myself. When I woke for
the second time, it was night. The room was brilliantly lit. Pu-Yi was
sitting by my bedside, quietly smoking a long, Chinese pipe, and, for my
part, though I was very stiff, I was in full possession of all my
faculties and knew that I had suffered no harm.