With a feeling of cold, nervous apprehension such as I have seldom experienced in a rather varied and active life, I turned then to my visitor.
He had not moved, save to lift his head. He was staring at me, his eyes fixed in his chalky white face. They were dark, long eyes—abnormally long—and they glittered with a strange, uncanny light.
"You are feeling better?" I asked.
His thin, bloodless lips moved, but for a moment no sound came from them. He tried again.
"Water," he said.
I drew him a glass from the tank in the wall of my room. He downed it at a gulp, and passed the empty glass back to me.
"More," he whispered. He drank the second glass more slowly, his eyes darting swiftly, curiously, around the room. Then his brilliant, piercing glance fell upon my face.
"Tell me," he commanded sharply, "what year is this?"
