“You remember them?”
“Maybe I can, if you don’t disturb my mind too much.”
“I’ll be quiet, doctor. You just order me, and I’ll do anything you say,” the old man promised abjectly. His eyes were cavernous with suffering. “Lord God! why don’t Dr. Marsh come?”
“Hal here is suffering from a general paralysis,” said Filhiol. “This curaré is peculiar stuff.” He laid his ear to Hal’s chest, listened a moment, then raised his head. “There’s some heart-action yet,” said he. “Our problem is to keep it going, and the respiration, till the effects pass. It’s quite possible Hal isn’t unconscious. He may know what’s going on. With this poison the victim feels and knows and understands, and yet can’t move hand or foot. In fact, he’s reduced to complete helplessness.”
“And yet you call me superstitious when I talk retribution!” the captain whispered tensely. “I lived by force in the old days. He, poor boy, put all his faith and trust in it; he made it his God, and worshipped it. And now—he’s struck down, helpless—”
“It is strange,” Filhiol had to admit. “I don’t believe in anything like that. But certainly this is very, very strange. Yes, your grandson is more helpless now than any child. Even if he lives, he’ll be helpless for a long time, and very weak for months and months. This kind of curaré used by the upper Malay people is the most diabolical stuff ever concocted. Its effects are swift and far-reaching; they last a long, long time, in case they don’t kill at once. Hal can never be the same man he used to be, captain. You’ve got to make up your mind to that, anyhow.”
“Thank the Lord for it!” the old man fervently ejaculated. “Thank the good Lord above!”
“If he lives, he may sometime get back a fair amount of strength. He may be as well as an average man, but the days of his unbridled power and his terrific force are all over. His fighting heart and arrogant soul are gone, never to return.”
“God is being very good to me!” cried Briggs, tears starting down his wrinkled cheeks.