"Do you suppose," I asked him at last, "that they have been giving him your medicine properly?"
"That is just what I have been wondering," he replied. "I do not believe that they have. But I cannot imagine how Ali Khan and his wife, who are both devoted to the child, would fail to do what I told them. However, I will make certain about it, by going straight to the Governor and asking him."
So Edwards went off, and, in the course of half an hour or so, returned, with a face almost livid with rage. He did not wait for me to ask him questions, but relieved his mind forthwith.
"Could you possibly conceive," he blurted out, "that the world could contain such a pack of bigoted idiots? The poor wretched little beggar is weaker than ever, and had not been given any of the things that I prescribed. I only discovered it by the merest accident. When I got to the room, I found one of the waiting-women watching over the sick child, and she told me that his mother, worn out with grief, had gone to her chamber to rest, while Ali Khan was busy administering justice in his hall. I seized the opportunity, and tackled the woman about the medicine. At first she pretended that she had never heard that I had supplied any medicine; but after I had reassured her by swearing that I would respect her confidences, and worked on her fears by telling her that if the boy died she would undoubtedly be held responsible for his death, and would probably frizzle in Gehennum, the old lady found her tongue. Bit by bit I dragged from her the whole miserable story. It seems that when my first draught was delivered at the sick-room, those abominable old native doctors were all there, and they harangued the Governor for his folly in consulting an infidel, about whom he knew nothing, and whose medicines might be, and probably were, poisons. High words followed, but in the end Ali Khan agreed that he would abide by the decision of the mulla, who was immediately sent for. Perhaps you have never seen a mulla playing the oracle. It is quite simple: he shuts his eyes, opens the Koran, plumps his finger on to a line, and then reads it out. Well, in this case, of course, the mulla said that the Koran decreed that my medicine would be most harmful to the child, and it was accordingly thrown away. The same thing has been happening every day since, and the only medicine given to the poor little chap has been some water swilled round a cup inside which the mulla has scribbled a text. Is it not positively sickening?"
"What are you going to do?" I asked.
"I have done it," he replied, with a chuckle. "I saw that it was neck or nothing, and fortunately I had taken some antipyrine with me. I made the woman fetch the cup with the text inside, and I told her that I was a bigger mulla than any mulla she had ever seen, and that I possessed the Evil Eye, which I would cast on her and her relations for ever and ever, if she disclosed a word of what I had said, or even mentioned that I had been there. She was what they call 'all of a tremble,' and I gave the child as strong a dose as I dared—antipyrine, Koran text, and all."
"Well done, old man," said I, slapping him on the back.
"It may be all right," said Edwards, "but it may not be. I am not very sanguine, for I am half afraid it was too late. However, we shall know to-night."
When we went down to the sick-room before going to bed that night, we found the Governor, his wife, and the Arab doctors in a state of ecstasy. The child was in what Edwards described as a "beautiful perspiration," and we were naturally overjoyed. Then the principal native doctor stepped forward and addressed Edwards.
"We have to confess to you," he said, "that none of your remedies have been applied to the patient, as the mulla, whom the Governor consulted, decided that they would be harmful to him. By the will of Allah, I and my learned brethren have been able to ease the child's sufferings."