As he sat there looking at the unlighted cigarette in his hand, it fell to the carpet at his feet. He started to stoop for it, caught himself in time, pulled himself erect with an effort.
Something was wrong with him—very wrong. Every 203 uneven breath he drew seemed to fill his lungs with the odour of that strange and volatile flavour he had noticed. It was beginning to make him giddy; it seemed to affect his vision, too.
Suddenly a terrible comprehension flashed through his confused mind, clearing it for a moment.
He tried to stand up and reach the electric bell; his knees seem incapable of sustaining him. Sliding to the floor, he attempted to crawl toward the olive-wood box; managed to get one arm around it, grip the handle. Then, with a last desperate effort, he groped in his breast pocket for the automatic pistol, freed it, tried to fire it. But the weapon and the unnerved hand that held it fell on the carpet. A muscular paralysis set in like the terrible rigidity of death; he could still see and hear as in a thickening dream.
A moment later, from the corridor, a slim hand was inserted between the door and jamb; the supple fingers became busy with the rubber band for a moment, released it. The door opened very slowly.
For a few seconds two dark eyes were visible between door and curtain, regarding intently the figure lying prone upon the floor. Then the curtain was twitched noiselessly aside; a young woman in the garb of a trained nurse stepped swiftly into the stateroom on tip-toe, followed by a big, good-looking, blue-eyed man wearing a square golden beard.
The man, who carried with him a pair of crutches, but who did not appear to require their aid, hastily set the dinner-tray and camp-table outside in the corridor, then closed and bolted the door.
Already the nurse was down on her knees beside the fallen man, trying to loosen his grasp on the box. Then her face blanched. 204
“It’s like the rigor of death itself,” she whispered fearfully over her shoulder. “Could I have given him enough to kill him?”
“He took only half a cup and a swallow of water. No.”