"Break off the performance--retire for half an hour."
"Impossible. See, they already observe us!"
And he drew back abruptly. There was a seat vacant in the front row. I took it, resolved at all events to watch him narrowly.
Not to detail too minutely the events of a performance which since that time has become sufficiently familiar, I may say that he carried out his programme with dreadful exactness, and, after appearing to burn the handkerchief to ashes and mix up a quantity of eggs and flour in the hat, proceeded very coolly to smash the works of my watch beneath his ponderous pestle. Notwithstanding my faith, I began to feel seriously uncomfortable. It was a neat little silver watch of foreign workmanship--not very valuable, to be sure, but precious to me as the most precious of repeaters.
"He is very tough, your watch, Monsieur," said the Wizard, pounding away vigorously. "He--he takes a long time ... Ah! mon Dieu!"
He raised his hand to his head, uttered a faint cry, and snatched at the back of the chair for support.
My first thought was that he had destroyed my watch by mistake--my second, that he was very ill indeed. Scarcely knowing what I did, and quite forgetting the audience, I jumped on the platform to his aid.
He shook his head, waved me away with one trembling hand, made a last effort to articulate, and fell heavily to the ground.
All was confusion in an instant. Everybody crowded to the stage; whilst I, with a presence of mind which afterwards surprised myself, made my way out by a side-door and ran to fetch my father. He was fortunately at home, and in less than ten minutes the Chevalier was under his care. We found him laid upon a sofa in one of the sitting-rooms of the inn, pale, rigid, insensible, and surrounded by an idle crowd of lookers-on. They had taken off his cap and beard, and the landlady was endeavoring to pour some brandy down his throat; but his teeth were fast set, and his lips were blue and cold.
"Oh, Doctor Arbuthnot! Doctor Arbuthnot!" cried a dozen voices at once, "the Conjuror is dying!"