Sir Charles applied a small phial to the patient's nostrils. After a while the poor fellow turned his head aside as though unconsciously trying to escape a torture. But the phial followed him remorselessly, and presently he moaned. Sir Charles at once removed the spring wedge from his mouth. His teeth clicked, shut, and he uttered a heartrending gurgling groan.
"More battery!" shouted Fulton. "Softly, softly!"
The patient's muscles jerked again, but less violently than before. He tossed and turned his head, trying vainly to escape the phial; thus for a moment, then of a sudden his eyes opened and he gazed about him.
"Stop battery!" cried Dr. Fulton. "Marion, come here!"
The girl left her lover and hurried forward. She stooped over the patient and looked into his eyes. "Ah, my poor fellow!" she murmured soothingly in English, "you are awake at last, I see. It is all over now—all over—nothing more to fear now. Soon you will be well and strong. Stronger than you have ever been in your life before—for you are cured."
He looked up at her with a dull, vacant stare, then uttered a little gasp of pain, for Dr. Fulton had plunged the hypodermic needle in his arm.
The injection's effect was miraculous. Within three minutes his face flushed crimson, his dull eyes brightened, and he actually attempted to sit up. Marion, however, gently pressed him back, but she allowed his head to rest upon her arm.
"I—I—feel fine!" he gasped.
"Hush!" said Marion; "you must not talk. You must be very good and keep still, for that is the only way you can get better."
Sir Charles Venner pressed a glass into her hand.