XXXVIII
The Fountain
The delicate fretwork of the walls was blurred in twilight when I waked from heavy, irresistible sleep.
I felt dull, but could trace no other bad effect from the drug. Indeed, I fancied that I was stronger; and very slowly, with occasional rests, I got upon my feet and began to crawl about the room.
There was very little furniture, but what there was, was good, and of a graceful Moorish design which suited the wall decoration, and the horseshoe shape of the window. This had an elaborate lattice of wood, which let in plenty of air, as there was no glass; but outside were six stout bars of iron, and the lattice was securely fastened. I stared through the pattern of wood into a very small but charming patio, paved with brick and tiles, and having in the centre a fountain, with a shallow basin. Feathery plumes of water played over a few low palms in great blue and white pots of Triana ware, but as I looked the plumes shrank almost to nothing, then ceased to wave. The fountain was asleep for the night.
Supporting myself with a hand on the wall, I got to the room of the marble bath. There, the window was but a foot square, and was set high in the wall. On a low, carved bench, lay the clothing I had worn on the night of my visit to the gypsy's cave. I sat down, and explored the pockets. What money I had had—six or seven hundred pesetas, so far as I could remember—was gone; so was my gold watch, and the revolver I had so gaily carried as a sure means of self-protection.
[pg 325] “Gypsy perquisites,” I said to myself, but the sight of the clothes brought back the past so vividly that I could see myself bidding good-bye to Dick at the railway station. Loyal, resourceful old Dick! Why had he not found his friend in all this time, while my hands were growing white and thin?
Surely there must have been some hue or cry, when I did not appear either at the villa or the hotel? A man cannot vanish off the face of the earth, I told myself, and leave no trace. I longed for the man with the capucha to come back, so that I could ask him more questions, even though I could put no faith in his answers; but he did not appear again that night. I slept after a time, a sleep of exhaustion; and when I waked in broad daylight, I found a glass of milk on a small Moorish stand by the bed.
I could not bear to drink it, lest the same drug should make me sleep as before. But how regain strength without food? And evidently I was to have this or none.