The Mouthpiece of Zitu

A Complete Novel
Sequel to Palos of the Dog Star Pack
Copyright 1919 by The Frank A. Munsey Company.
This story was published in The All-Story Weekly, serially, beginning July 5, 1919.
I took my stethoscope and went over the patient's chest. I wanted to determine his general condition, since he was now committed to my care as medical director of the State Hospital for the Insane. He had struck me as being in a rather bad way when he was brought in from the capital city farther north. It was part of my professional duty to look out for his physical welfare as well as endeavor to set right his distorted brain.
I had one of the nurses remove the hospital garment into which he had been put, and then I set the disk of my instrument over the region of his heart. It was bad, very bad indeed. The burr and whisper of its labored action came through his emaciated flesh with surprising loudness. I frowned and went on to the lungs, and found them suffering from the effects of that faulty circulation.
A dissociation of personality had been alleged by the physicians who had sent him into my hands. In other words, the man was supposed not to know who he was—to have lost his true identity, or be confused about it in his own mind. But the case was not violent, had given no indications of any wish to work harm to any one about him. Indeed, the entire course until now had been of a melancholic turn.
I finished my examination and straightened, and met the regard of his eyes. They were a very dark brown, and they were fixed intently on my face. What was more, they gave me one of the oddest sensations I had ever had in my life.
I had never seen the man before. Of that I was positive. And yet as I met the steady glance he held upon me, I felt that I knew those eyes—the eyes, mind you—or what was behind them—looking out as through a window in a darkened house. I'm not sure, but I think I caught my breath.
Send the nurse away, will you, Dr. Murray?