Pharos, The Egyptian Part 22

He had got no farther when I took him by the collar, and pus.h.i.+ng him back against the wall, b.u.mped his head against it until it is a wonder I did not fracture his skull.

"Hold your tongue, you drunken fool!" I said, feeling as if I could kill him where he stood, "and tell me where the man is who attended to me this afternoon."

The energy with which I had administered the punishment must have somewhat sobered the fellow, for he pulled himself together, and rubbing the back of his head with his hand asked me if I had heard the news.

"I have heard nothing," I cried. "What news do you mean?"

"Why, that the man you spoke to this afternoon is dead. He died of the plague within an hour after you were here, rolling on the floor, and making an awful mess of things. Then all the other fellows ran away.

They didn't know there was a bottle and a half of brandy in the cupboard in the manager's room, but, bless your heart, I did, and now I'm not afraid of the plague. Don't you believe it!"

"Dead?" I cried, for I could scarcely credit that what he told me could be true. The man had seemed so well when I had seen him only a few hours before. However, I had no time to think of him.

"I want a chemist," I cried. "I must find one at once. Can you give me the address of one?"

"The first turning to the left," he cried, "and the third shop on the right; Dittmer is the name. But I say, you're looking precious white about the gills. Though you did treat me badly just now, I don't bear any malice, so you can have a drop of this if you like. There's enough here for two of us. You won't? Well, then, I will. A short life and a merry one's my motto, and here's to you, my buck."

Before he could have half filled his gla.s.s I had pa.s.sed out of the office and was in the street he had mentioned. Drunk as he was, his information proved correct, and a chemist's shop, with the name of Dittmer over the door, was the third house on the right hand side. I entered and handed the prescription to the venerable-looking man I found behind the counter.

"I am afraid you will have some difficulty in getting this made up," he said after he had read it. "Two of the drugs are not in common use, and personally I do not keep them. Is the case an urgent one?"

"It's a matter of life and death," I answered. "All my happiness in life depends upon it. If you can not help me, can you direct me to any one who will? I a.s.sure you there is not a moment to be lost."

Evidently the man was touched by my anxiety. At any rate he went out of his way to do a kindly action, for which no amount of grat.i.tude on my part will ever be able to repay him.

"I do not know anything about the merits of the prescription," he said, "but if these two drugs are necessary, I don't mind telling you that I think I know where I can procure them. I have an old friend, a quack, so the other chemists call him, who is always trying experiments. It is within the bounds of possibility he may have them. If you will wait here for a few minutes I'll run up to his house and see. It is only a few doors from here, and he is always at home at this hour."

"I will await only too willingly," I answered earnestly. "Heaven grant you may be successful!"

He said no more but ran out of the shop. While he was gone I paced up and down in a fever of impatience. Every minute seemed an hour, and as I looked at my watch and realized that if I wished to get back to the hotel within the time specified by Pharos I had only ten minutes in which to do it, I felt as if my heart would stop beating. In reality the man was not gone five minutes, and when he burst into the shop again he waved two bottles triumphantly above his head.

"There's not another man in Hamburg could have got them!" he cried with justifiable pride. "Now I can make it up for you."

Five minutes later he handed the prescription to me.

"I shall never be able to thank you sufficiently for your kindness," I said as I took it. "If I can get back with it in time you will have saved a life that I love more than my own. I do not know how to reward you, but if you will accept this and wear it as a souvenir of the service you have rendered me, I hope you will do so."

So saying, I took from my pocket my gold watch and chain and handed them across the counter to him. Then, without waiting for an expression of his grat.i.tude, I pa.s.sed into the street and, hailing a cab, bade the man drive me as fast as his horse could go to my hotel.

Reaching it, I paid him with the first coin I took from my pocket and ran upstairs. What my feelings were as I approached the room where I had left Pharos and Valerie together I must leave you to imagine. With a heart beating like a sledge-hammer I softly turned the handle of the door and stole in, scarcely daring to look in the direction of the sofa.

However, I might have spared myself the pain, for neither Pharos nor Valerie were there, but just as I was wondering what could have become of them the former entered the room.

"Have you got it?" he inquired eagerly, his voice trembling with emotion.

"I have," I answered, and handed him the medicine. "Here it is. At one time I began to think I should have to come back without it."

"Another ten minutes and I can promise you you would have been too late," he answered. "I have carried her to her room and placed her upon her bed. You must remain here and endeavour to prevent any one suspecting what is the matter. If your medicine proves what I hope, she should be sleeping quietly in an hour's time, and on the high road to recovery in two. But remember this, if the people in this house receive any hint of what she is suffering from they will remove her to the hospital at once, and in that case, I pledge you my word, she will be dead before morning."

"You need have no fear on that score," I answered. "They shall hear nothing from me."

Thereupon he took his departure, and for the next hour I remained where I was, deriving what satisfaction I could from the a.s.surance he had given me.

It was quite dark by the time Pharos returned.

"What news do you bring?" I inquired anxiously. "Why do you not tell me at once how she is? Can you not see how I am suffering?"

"The crisis is past," he replied, "and she will do now. But it was a very narrow escape. If I had not followed you by the next train, in what sort of position would you be at this minute?"

"I should not be alive," I answered. "If her life had been taken it would have killed me."

"You are very easily killed, I have no doubt," was his sneering rejoinder. "At the same time, take my advice and let this be a lesson to you not to try escaping from me again. You have been pretty severely punished. On another occasion your fate may be even worse."

I gazed at him in pretended surprise.

"I do not understand your meaning when you say that I escaped from you," I said, with an air of innocence that would not have deceived any one. "Why should I desire to do so? If you refer to my leaving Prague so suddenly, please remember that I warned you the night before that it would be necessary for me to leave at once for England. I presume I am at liberty to act as I please?"

"I am not in the humour just now to argue the question with you," he answered, "but if you will be advised by me, my dear Forrester, you will, for the future, consult me with regard to your movements. My ward has given you her experiences and has told you with what result, she, on two occasions, attempted to leave me. At your instigation she has tried a third time, and you see how that attempt has turned out. You little thought that when you were dining so comfortably in Herr Schuncke's restaurant in Berlin, last night, that I was watching your repast."

"I do not believe it," I answered angrily. "It is impossible that you could have been there, if only for the reason that there was no train to bring you."

He smiled pityingly upon me.

"I am beginning to think, my friend," he said, "that you are not so clever as I at first supposed you. I wonder what you would say if I were to tell you, that while Valerie was playing for Schuncke's entertainment, I, who was travelling along between Prague and Dresden, was an interested spectator of the whole scene. Shall I describe to you the arrangement of the room? Shall I tell you how Schuncke leant against the wall near the door, his hands folded before him, and his great head nodding? How you sat at the table near the fireplace, building castles in the air, upon which, by the way, I offer you my felicitations? while Valerie, standing on the other side of the room, made music for you all? It is strange that I should know all that, particularly as I did not do myself the honour of calling at the restaurant, is it not?"

I made no answer. To tell the truth, I did not know what to say. Pharos chuckled as he observed my embarra.s.sment.

"You will learn wisdom before I have done with you," he continued.

"However, that is enough on the subject just now. Let us talk about something else. There is much to be done to-night, and I shall require your a.s.sistance."

The variety of emotions to which I had been subjected that day had exercised such an effect upon me that, by this time, I was scarcely capable of even a show of resistance. In my own mind I felt morally certain that when he said there was much to do he meant the accomplishment of some new villainy, but what form it was destined to take I neither knew nor cared. He had got me so completely under his influence by this time that he could make me do exactly as he required.

"What is it you are going to do?" I inquired, more because I saw that he expected me to say something than for any other reason.

"I am going to get us all out of this place and back to England without loss of time," he answered, in a tone of triumph.

"To England?" I replied, and the hideous mockery of his speech made me laugh aloud; as bitter a laugh surely as was ever uttered by mortal man.

"You accused me just now of not being as clever as you had at first supposed me. I return the compliment. You have evidently not heard that every route into England is blocked."

"No route is ever blocked to me," he answered. "I leave for London at midnight to-night, and Valerie accompanies me."

"You must be mad to think of such a thing!" I cried, Valerie's name producing a sudden change in my behaviour toward him. "How can she possibly do so? Remember how ill she is. It would be little short of murder to move her."

"It will be nothing of the kind," he replied. "When I want her she will rise from her bed and walk down stairs and go wherever I bid her, looking to all appearances as well and strong as any other woman in this town."

"By all means let us go to England then," I said, clutching eagerly at the hope he held out. "Though how you are going to manage it I do not know."

"You shall see," he said. "Remember, you have never known me fail. If you would bear that fact in mind a little oftener, you would come nearer a better appreciation of my character than that to which you have so far attained. However, while we are wasting time talking, it is getting late, and you have not dined yet. I suppose it is necessary for you to eat, otherwise you will be incapable of anything?"

"I could not touch a thing," I answered in reply to his gibe. "You will not therefore be hindered by me. But how can we go out and leave Valerie behind in her present condition?"