The minutes passed slowly, and we all three remained with our eyes eagerly watching for some sign of life on that still face, while Avenza occasionally glanced at his chronometer.
"His pulse beats," he said at length in a low voice, "faintly, it is true, but still it beats."
I heaved a sigh of relief, but Beltrami remained silently looking at the face of Pallanza with an anxious frown.
"She cannot have given him fifteen," he muttered under his breath, "if So, he would have been dead by this time; but his pulse beats, so he is alive."
He looked irresolutely at the phial in his hand, and then turned to Avenza, who Was still counting the feeble pulsation of the blood.
"Doctor, I will give him three more drops!"
"Eh! and why not?" replied Avenza, raising his eye-brows; "as that is an antidote a few drops more or less cannot kill him after the dose of poison he has taken."
The Marchese made no further remark, but, bending forward again, he held the phial over the half-open mouth for the second time.
"One, two, three!"
This time the effect was magical; for after an interval of about two or three minutes, we saw a shudder run through the rigid body, the left arm jerked upward in a spasmodic manner, the face flushed crimson with the rush of blood once more flowing freely through the arteries, and at last the heavy eyelids lifted slowly. Pallanza gazed at us with a dazed, unseeing expression, then some tremendous force seemed to take possession of the body, for a spasm of pain passed over his face, a choking cry issued from his lips, and in a moment he was shrieking, writhing, twisting, rolling and plunging about the bed like a demoniac. All the nerves and muscles which had been dead and inert for so many days were now waking again to life, and the agony which racked his frame from head to foot must have been truly terrible. Both Beltrami and myself made a step forward to hold down this agonized body, but Avenza stopped us.