"I would, my boy," the fiend replied with a harsh laugh, "I would do it gladly, if I hadn't forgotten it. Some day I shall take a day off from these mundane operations of mine, and return to the spirit vale and freshen up my formulæ. Then perhaps I can help you. But I have something very important to say to you, and if you will come with me to my own quarters I will say it. This room is too chilly for a spirit with nothing on."
Toppleton readily acquiesced. His other sensations had been so acute since his awakening, that he did not realize until the fiend spoke of the chill in the atmosphere that he was himself cold to the very marrow of his bones; that his blood seemed hardly to run in his veins, so congealed had it become. He followed the fiend, who led the way from Toppleton's room to Barncastle's own quarters, where a log fire blazed fiercely on the hearth. There was no other light than that of the fire in the room, and Hopkins was glad of it, his eyes were too weary for any illumination save the one which made the darkness in which he now sat even blacker than was natural.
"Lie down there on my bed, Toppleton," said the fiend. "Lie down and listen to me."
"You are a sick man," began the fiend, "though you may not know it. You have no more than an even chance of living beyond this night. If you do live until to-morrow morning I see no reason why you should not continue to do so for many years to come; in fact I confidently anticipate that such will be the case, but you have got to be careful."
"If you were not one of the supernatural element, Mr. Greene," said Toppleton, nervously tapping his fingers together, "I should be inclined to laugh at your notions respecting my health. A man of my habits and physique doesn't go to pieces after a single late supper, to be brought up standing at the doors of death uncertain as to whether he will be invited in or requested to move on, all in a single night."
"For an acute man you are an obtuse sort of a person," returned the fiend, gravely. "I do not mean that you are in immediate danger of physical collapse, though that will come shortly unless you take care of yourself. It is a worse than physical death that I refer to. You are on the verge of intellectual death, Toppleton. You need twenty-four hours of wakefulness to put you in an insane asylum, an incurable, hopelessly mad for the balance of your days. You remarked a moment since that you were conscious of your head. By that you meant that you felt the weight of it, and it is a leaden weight unless my eyes deceive me. I have experienced it, and I know what it means."
Hopkins' face blanched as the fiend spoke. It was too easy for him to believe all that had been said; and why should it not be so, he asked himself. Here was a case of mortal arrayed in combat against a supernatural being, and in the nature of things it was a contest of the intellectuals and not one of the sort in which Toppleton's training would have made him an easy victor. In a bout at arms Barncastle would have been a prey to Toppleton with scarce an effort on the American's part, but mind for mind, the young lawyer was fighting against terrible odds. He had proven to a very considerable extent a winner, and yet his victory was quite as hollow as the victory of a trotting horse who has won only the preliminary heats and still has the final test to undergo; but to win even the trial heat was a great thing, and that his mind should be well-nigh used up was to have been expected. Realizing this, and realizing also that it was his defeated adversary who was advising him as to what was necessary to be done for the preservation of his sanity, he was quite overcome. He nearly fainted, in fact he would have done so had not the fiend seeing his condition applied restoratives to his head and feet, and poured between his open lips a concoction which made every drop of blood in his body glow as with health, which imparted strength to his weary limbs, and which seemed to clear his aching head with its magical potence.
"You have had a narrow escape, my dear fellow," said the fiend, as Hopkins revived. "If I hadn't saved you, you would have stepped over the line."
"You—are—very—very kind," murmured Hopkins, raising himself on his elbow and then dropping wearily back into the pillows again. "You place me under very deep obli—"