There was a strange odour of chemicals in the place, and, as the doctor removed the cloth, it was to uncover, just as they had been left on the previous night, a powerful galvanic battery, syringes, and other surgical paraphernalia.
For the next hour the doctor continued his labours, feeling more and more assured that he should triumph; and, as he toiled on, he talked rapidly to himself of the apparently complete arrest of decay, and the perfectly calm manner in which his subject lay, as it were, placidly waiting for the awakening which North felt, in his excitement, absolutely sure would come.
“It is so near now that I have but to vitalise and obtain positive proof that, when carried to its full extent, I have performed what is almost a miracle, and proved that what I worked out in theory is possible in practice.”
He stood gazing down at the calm, cold face, with its closed eyes, hesitating, not from the horror that had half paralysed him before, but from dread lest, now he had gone so far that he could apply his final test, he should be disappointed.
His head burned, his pulses throbbed heavily, and his hesitation increased.
Rousing himself at last, he laid his hand upon the icy-cold forehead before him, the contact sending a chill through his frame; but he did not notice it.
“Why do I stop?” he said. “It only wants this. I am alone, and no better opportunity could come. Oh, if I had but the aiding hand of that old savant, how easy it would be!”
This brought back the scene in the theatre—the lecture, the applause; and his heart beat more rapidly in anticipation of his grand triumph when he could demonstrate this, the greatest surgical feat that had ever been performed.
“And yet I hesitate,” he exclaimed excitedly; “hesitate when I have but to plunge boldly to succeed.”
“And I will,” he said firmly, after a pause.