For the next hour, I scarcely remember anything that happened. I imagine that I was so excited that my experiences left no definite impress upon my brain. I have indistinct remembrances of alternating between hope and despair, between joy and sorrow. I remember, too, that I was called upon to perform certain actions, but to this day I do not know what they were. I was more like an automaton than a man.
At the end of the hour, however, Colonel McClure accompanied me into my bedroom, which, as I have said, adjoined that of Edgecumbe.
'We've done it, my boy,' he said, and I noted the satisfaction in his voice.
'He will live, then?'
He nodded. 'Barring accidents, he will. But it's a mystery to me.'
'What is a mystery?'
'I hardly like to tell you. But you are no hysterical woman, and you have a steady head on you. Until an hour and a half ago, I was acting in the dark, acting blindly. Even now I have no proof of anything. You say your friend was in India?'
'I have told you all I know,' was my answer.
'I spent twelve years there,' went on the colonel. 'A great part of the time I was with native regiments, and I have had some peculiar experiences. India's a strange country, and in many things the people there can teach us Westerners a lot. Look here, why did you come for me?'
'Instinct,' I replied.