“Tired—exhausted!” cried the Colonel. He turned to the Lieutenant. “Give them chairs. If what I suspect be true, it is of the highest importance that no mishap should occur to them!”
Chairs were procured for the two prisoners and, when they were seated, Dean turned to his companion. “Speak out and end this situation,” he again urged.
“All right,” assented Kearns. Without further delay he narrated their experiences with the Doctor in the cave. The Colonel listened with extraordinary interest.
“And so,” said Kearns in conclusion, “if this is really the month of July, as I’ve been told, we must have slept, or been in a condition of suspended animation, as that confounded Doctor called it, for a period of six weeks. But, tell me, what is the date?”
But the Colonel, who was looking at the prisoners with absorbed interest, did not answer. Instead, he put the following question, bending forward in eager anxiety for the reply:
“Can you tell me the date when you went into that cave and entered into that—ah—sleep you have described?”
“Certainly,” answered Kearns. “It was June the tenth.”
“June the tenth of what year?”
“June the tenth, nineteen hundred, of course.”
“What!”