"And then what? I am ready to admit that it will have an effect and that this man will awake from sleep! Or rather from death.... For such a sleep is nothing but death. No: really we are the victims of a collective hallucination.... No: there was no film on the mirror. No: the chest does not rise and fall. No—a thousand times no! One does not come to life again!"
"Three minutes gone," said Marco Dario.
And watch in hand, he counted, minute by minute, five more minutes—then five more.
The waiting of these six persons would have been incomprehensible, had its explanation not been found in the fact that all the events foretold by the Marquis de Beaugreval had followed one another with mathematical precision. There had been a series of facts which was very like a series of miracles, which compelled the witnesses of those facts to be patient—at least till the moment fixed for the supreme miracle.
"Fifteen minutes," said the Italian.
A few more seconds passed. Of a sudden they quivered. A hushed exclamation burst from the lips of each. The man's eyelids had moved.
In a moment the phenomenon was repeated, and so clearly and distinctly that further doubt was impossible. It was the twitching of two eyes that tried to open. At the same time the arms stirred. The hands quivered.
"Oh!" stuttered the distracted notary. "He's alive! He's alive!"