“Oh, do something, doctor! do something!—Save her! Save her! Oh, God, deliver her from the evil one!”
Her agony recalled me to my professional duty. I started forward but before I could reach her I was snatched back by a violent hand on my shoulder.
“Stand aside!” commanded old Vandermeulen in a terrible voice. “Evil spirit or no evil spirit, I guess it knows all about that treasure—and I’m going to hear what it’s got to say!” Of his normal love for his daughter there was not a trace. The man was completely dominated, to the exclusion of any other sentiment, by the lust for gold, more gold. He looked scarcely human as his eyes glowered upon me, murder in them if I thwarted him. “If it’s the Devil himself that’s got her—let her talk!”
But the mother sprang up with a wild shriek, rushed toward her daughter.
“Do you wish her eternal damnation?” she cried, flinging her arms about the girl. “Pauline! Pauline! For the love of God, don’t you know me?—Oh, say a prayer—say a prayer after me!” She commenced the Lord’s Prayer in a voice that trembled with anguish.
The girl stood rigid in her embrace, drawn up away from her, looking down upon her with fixed and hostile eyes. She made one instinctive movement to escape—and then suddenly crumpled in a swoon upon the floor.
She came round easily enough under simple restoratives, looked up at us with childish, bewildered eyes—the old Pauline again! Her mother completely broke down over her, sobbing in almost crazy joy at her restoration. Emotionally infected, perhaps, the girl also gave way to a hysterical passion of weeping, which would not be checked, and for which she could give no reason. She seemed not to have the slightest recollection of the part she had just played. Old Vandermeulen, still obsessed by his lust for the treasure, tried to question her. She only stared at him dumbly—a vague fear coming into her eyes, but giving no response. I silenced him with all the authority of my professional position, and got the girl into her stateroom, where we left her with her mother.
Throughout the next day neither of the two women appeared. Pauline was utterly prostrated, and she remained in bed. Her mother stayed with her, under strict injunctions to mention nothing of last night’s terrible scene.
Meanwhile, of course, we were steadily drawing nearer to the Nicaraguan coast and the island of Old Providence with its tiny and, to us, fascinating satellite, Santa Katalina. Even I could not help wondering what we should find there. The two Vandermeulens were in a fever of excitement, cursing at every moment the slowness of the yacht. We were, as a matter of fact, due to reach the island early next morning.