after yours came Ah Schow, and then lama after lama; at length your grip came flying out and a lot of bags followed it. Last of all came Padma all tied up with rags, but I had grown used to it by this time, and what worried me most was that you showed no sign of returning consciousness like the rest. It alarmed Padma not a little, too, and he immediately hypnotized Walla and began to question her. Her answers did not surprise me a bit, for by this time I was prepared for anything. She said that you had gone to seek Maurice in Mars.”
Here, so far as can interest the reader, the Doctor’s narative ended. Two points, however, may be alluded to. The distance between the lamasery and the cavern, and the length of time during which I had remained unconscious after the appearance of my body at the other end of the shute.
Concerning the first, lam unfortunately not in position to furnish any information, for the Doctor had not thought to note the time while the excitement continued. One thing is certain, those strange underground inclines were many miles in length; as for myself, Philpot assured me that he watched over my body for more than an hour and had just about given me up, when all at once I looked at him and spoke his name.
Now all this talk took place beside Maurice’s body, which the Doctor and Ni-fan-lu had carefully conveyed to a rocky shelf on one side of the cavern, where I found it enveloped in that coarse bagging such as the Chinese wrap around tea chests. There was no change in the appearance of the face, nor had there been any as yet after the lapse of a full month. At night I slept beside it, by day Walla usually watched; between us both it was seldom left alone.
Whether or no the Doctor still believed Maurice dead I cannot positively say, for he had long since refused to discuss the matter. He freely admitted, however, that there was something very different from either death or the ordinary trance state about my friend’s condition; and he would sometimes sit by for a long time holding a pocket mirror before the nostrils—but never a sign of moisture came upon the glass, and yet at no time was the body absolutely cold. Indeed the Doctor assured me that he was satisfied that no true rigor mortis had come upon it. Once he urged me to let him try bleeding, but I grew so excited in my refusal that he never mentioned the matter again.
