Part 9 (1/2)

Struggling, panting, tearing, as it were, against a power that bade him hearken to that terrible answer, Julian Estcourt cried or seemed to cry aloud in an agony of entreaty.

Then a rus.h.i.+ng noise as of an unloosed torrent was in his ears; a dull, confused pain beat like clanging hammers in his brain.

His eyes opened and he found himself, bathed in the cold sweat of more than mortal terror, lying face downwards on the floor of his own bedroom.

In a blind, dazed fas.h.i.+on he struggled to his feet and rushed to the window and let the cool night air blow over his face. Every limb was trembling; he could not think with any clearness.

In some dim, unconscious fas.h.i.+on he groped for his watch, found it, and looked at the time. A quarter-past one. Only an hour had pa.s.sed--an hour--and he felt as if centuries had swept over his head in the vivid horrors of that awful dream.

”But it was only a dream,” he cried aloud, drawing in deep panting breaths of the pine-scented air. ”Oh! thank G.o.d. Thank G.o.d, it was only a dream!”

And he sank on his knees and sobbed like a child in the star-lit solitude of the night.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

EFFECTS.

The next day, when Colonel Estcourt sent to know if the Princess Zairoff would receive him, he was informed she was ill, and could see no one.

Feeling strangely disinclined for mere ordinary society, he ordered his horse to be brought round and spent the greater portion of the day in long, fierce gallops over the miles of stretching sand that framed in the bay.

The sky was chill and grey; a cold wind blew from the sea and dashed the salt foam in his face as the waves swept stormily in. But the dull sky and the stormy sea suited his mood, and seemed to string up the relaxed tension of his nerves.

”Nature is man's best physician after all,” he said to himself, reining in his beautiful Arab at last, and baring his brow to the fresh breeze.

”Even as she is his best friend. Only we don't believe it. We live in the world and follow the ways of the world, until our faculties are blunted, our natures demoralised, our tastes vitiated, our energies enfeebled. How many lands I have travelled over, how many cities I have seen, and yet I verily believe that the wild Sioux in his prairies, and the wandering Bedouin of the desert, have more of real manhood than we.

Yes; and get more real enjoyment out of life.”

It was quite dusk before he reached the hotel. The country was all new and strange to him, and he had missed his way more than once. But though he was tired, and stiff, and hungry, he felt that his mental energies were braced, his mind at ease, and the disturbing and torturing memories of the previous night no longer tormented him.

At dinner he sat next to Mrs Ray Jefferson, who was radiant and voluble as ever.

She had a great deal to say about the Princess, who, it appeared, had again spent the morning in the Baths.

”She looked ill,” said the little American. ”Awfully white and languid.

I asked her if she had seen a ghost. There was something scared and strange about her. I surmise it's nerves. It was odd, too,” and she lowered her voice as if taking the Colonel into a special confidence.

”But she went off to sleep in the hot room. Nothing could waken her. I got rather frightened.”

His face looked disturbed. ”To sleep?” he said. ”That is rather unusual, is it not?”

”Oh, plenty of us go to sleep in the cooling-room,” said Mrs Jefferson, ”but I never saw anyone do it in any of the others. She was talking to me, and then quite suddenly she said 'I feel sleepy. Please do not speak. I shall wake in a quarter of an hour.' And so she did.”

”You did not try to waken her, I suppose?” asked Colonel Estcourt anxiously.

”Well, I did, but it was no use, so I let her be. I saw she was all right, because she breathed naturally, and her heart beat quite regularly. Still, it seemed odd. I asked her maid afterwards about it.

She's a pretty little Frenchwoman, and always waits in the cooling-room for her mistress. But she didn't seem to think anything of it. She said she very often does that, and it is best not to try and waken her.

I must say she seemed much better afterwards. Brighter and more alert.