CHAPTER XLI.
THE CHÂTEAU PAULOFF.
WHEN Jack next opened his eyes with consciousness upon the world he found he was lying on a soft bed in a sumptuously furnished apartment.
The room was dimly lighted by a handsome lamp, and the cheery flickering of a large fire cast fantastic shadows upon the massive polished furniture.
Jack was conscious of a curious inability to move, of a sense of languor not altogether unpleasant. He seemed to have been asleep a long time, and to have been troubled with dreams—dreams of the cholera camp at Varna, of the death-ride in the North Valley, of the struggle in the fog at Inkermann, of Linham and Will and Pearson, of his mother and sisters. Strange people seemed to flit about in his dreams: the count, a white-haired old gentleman, a stately lady, and a young girl who looked at him always with anxious eyes. The room, too, seemed familiar, though what it all meant Jack could not tell.
Presently he fancied he was still lying on the cold, wet ground at Old Fort, then in the caves of Inkermann; then he ceased to think, lamplight and firelight grew dimmer and dimmer, and at last vanished altogether.
Next it was broad daylight, with a wintry sun shining through the curtains, and Jack awoke to realise that he really was in bed in a strange place, and that he felt as weak as a baby. He tried to sit up and get out of bed; but, utterly unable to do so, he fell back with a deep groan. Then there sounded a rustle of garments, and a stout, kind-faced woman, dressed like a nun, wearing a crucifix on her bosom and beads round her waist, got up from a chair by the bedside, uttered kind, soothing words in a tongue Jack guessed was Russian, smoothed his pillows, and gently laid him back upon them.
Then Jack remembered more—he had been taken prisoner by Cossacks. Count Pauloff had found him and taken him to the prison at Sebastopol. Well, Russian prisons were splendid places thought Jack, looking round him, and their attendants were more than kind.
Then some warm milk, flavoured with something very nice, was given him; the good nun gently bathed his face and hands, and Jack wanted to talk. He tried his kind nurse with French and English; but she only smiled gently and shook her head. And so Jack lay quietly thinking until he happened to catch sight of his own hand and arm. Heavens! it was only skin and bone; in one day he seemed to have turned into a skeleton!
This gave him fresh food for thought, and his mystification was growing deeper when his nurse murmured something, among which Jack thought he caught the name Irma, when a soft footstep approached the bed and a young girl of exceeding beauty, gladness beaming from her eyes, took Jack’s hand, saying softly in French, ‘Good-morning, monsieur, welcome back to life! It has been a hard struggle, but you have conquered.’
The features of the young girl did not seem altogether strange, though Jack could not for the moment recollect where he had seen them before. Something of his uncertainty must have showed in his face, for the girl continued, ‘You are wondering where you are, how you got here, and who I am?’