"Whether it is enough or too much," said Cleanor, "I must hear it all. It would be ten times worse to be left in this suspense. I can only judge from what you say that I must have been struck from behind, that is by my own friends. But that treachery I can't believe. What do you say, sir," he went on, looking to the physician; "can you throw any light on the matter?"
"Be calm, be calm, my friend," said the physician. "You will undo all the good that we have been doing you for the last ten days. Here, let me feel your pulse.... It is just as I thought," he went on, "a regular bounding pulse. I would have given anything for you to have had such a pulse when I first took you in hand. But now it means fever, and fever means I don't know what."
"Still, I must have the whole story now," persisted Cleanor. "Do you think I can sleep with this doubt regarding my friends hanging over me?"
"Well, a wilful man will have his way, but, mind, I wash my hands of the whole business. I am not responsible for what may happen. And it promised to be such a beautiful cure, too!"
"For heaven's sake go on! Tell me how I came to be wounded?" cried the patient, with an emphasis of which no one would have thought him capable half an hour before.
"Well," replied the physician, "I will tell you what I know, but it is under protest. You see this"—he produced from his pocket a leaden bullet of the kind commonly used in slings—"I extracted this from the wound on your hip. A nasty wound it was, and had caused a terrible loss of blood. You see that mark? It is not a Roman mark, certainly. Do you recognize it? Unless I am very much mistaken, it is the Carthaginian letter that answers to what we Greeks call alpha. What do you say?"
"You are right," said Cleanor. "I have myself given them out to the slingers from the stores. Yes, it is a Carthaginian bullet."
"Then there is another thing," the physician went on. "When they were stripping you to put you into bed, this stone that I hold in my hand fell out of a fold in your clothes. There were some fragments of hair upon it, and I recognized the hair as yours. See, they are here still;" and he produced a small piece of papyrus in which they were wrapped. "Now, where did that bit of stone come from? It has got, if you look closely at it, a little mortar on one side. At some time it has been built into a wall. You don't find such things lying about on the open plain. No; that bit of stone came from somewhere inside Nepheris. I have got some ten or twelve other pieces of stone very like it, that were picked up near the place by a boy whom I sent to search the next day. They are much of a size, and, I should say, though I don't profess to know much about such things, that they came from a catapult. Nothing else could have sent them so far. Now I have told you all I know."
"Many thanks, sir!" said the Greek in a low voice. "I am convinced that there has been treachery; indeed you leave no room for doubt. But I could almost wish," he added with a melancholy smile, "I could almost wish that you had been less skilful, and my friends here less affectionate. I hardly feel as grateful to you as I ought to be. It is a grievous thing for a man to feel that he has been wounded in the house of his friends."
"Come, come," said the kindly physician, "it may have been only an accident or a mistake after all! However, you have had excitement enough, and more than enough, for the day. Take this, and it will send you to sleep;" and producing a small phial of poppy-juice from his wallet he poured a potent dose into a cup of wine, and gave it to his patient.