“Still at Kubbet-ul-Haj, I see.” They had purposely arranged the bed and the camp-furniture in the same positions that they had occupied in his room at the Mission, with the object of avoiding a sudden shock. “I should have said we must have left it long ago, but I have had the most extraordinary dreams. Could it have been a touch of fever, do you think? But is that Miss Keeling? Ah, this explains it. I must have been ill?”
“Yes, you have frightened us all very much, Sir Dugald,” said Georgia, for Lady Haigh was incapable of speech.
“Ah, it was a bad attack, then, was it? Queer that I don’t remember feeling it coming on. The treaty is not signed yet, I suppose?”
“Yes, it is signed. You have been ill for some time—longer than you think.”
“I always knew that Stratford was a clever fellow. This is the best news you could have brought me, Miss Keeling. But we ought to be thinking of returning to Khemistan if we have secured the treaty. How long do you give me to get well enough to mount a horse again?”
“You mustn’t be in too great a hurry. We might carry you in a litter.”
“No, thank you. It would be too much like my dreams. I have suffered agonies through imagining that I was in a trance, and about to be buried alive, because they thought I was dead. It seemed to me that I could see people moving about all round me, but I could not move, or speak, or feel. Then I was put in a coffin, and carried off to be buried. It always ended there, but it came over and over again. It was the horrible helplessness—my absolute powerlessness to make any sign to show that I was alive—which was the worst thing about it.”
“Oh, Dugald!” cried Lady Haigh, in a strangled voice—and kissing him hastily, she hurried out of the room.
“Lady Haigh has been very much frightened about you, Sir Dugald,” said Georgia. “She has watched over you night and day, and I have often wondered that she did not break down.”
“Please look after her,” he said, anxiously. “She has wonderful pluck, but sometimes she is obliged to give way altogether, and I’m afraid from what you say that she must be quite overdone.”