“All I could think of was of getting back home as soon as possible, so that Richard could get the medical care that he needed,” his mother continued. “But we were delayed in starting, and all the time he kept getting worse. Oh, it was terrible to see such a splendid intellect losing itself in delusion,” she sobbed. “Again and again I felt that I would go crazy myself.”
“Poor, dear mother!” said Don, putting his arms around her neck.
“One night,” resumed Mrs. Sturdy, when she could speak coherently, “there was a terrific storm. The thunder and lightning seemed to affect him strongly and bring things to a climax. He and Ruth and I were seated in our room when he suddenly started up, shouting, ‘I must go to Egypt,’ and rushed out into the darkness. I rushed out after him calling to him to stop and come back. The thunder may have drowned my voice, but at any rate he didn’t heed me and kept on.”
Tears came into Don’s eyes as he pictured his gently nurtured mother running in a frenzy of anxiety and grief after his distraught father in the rain and darkness.
“No one was abroad in that terrible storm,” went on Mrs. Sturdy. “There was nobody I could get to help me. Richard kept on till he got to the river side. There was a vessel moored to the wharf and he jumped on board. I saw him stumble and disappear. I leaped after him and stumbled into an open hatchway. That was all I knew for a long time afterward.”
Don hugged her convulsively, too overcome to trust himself to speak, while the professor and the captain were not ashamed of the tears that came into their eyes.
“When I came to myself,” resumed Don’s mother, “I was in total darkness. My head was dizzy, and it was some time before I realized what had happened. Then it all came back to me. I could tell from the pitching and the swaying that the vessel was in motion. I felt about me and found your father near by. He was unconscious. After a while he came to himself in part, though he was still dazed.
“Then I found a pole and hammered at the hatch until they heard me and the cover was taken off. They brought us up on deck. I found that we were on a vessel bound for the Mediterranean. There was no wireless on board, so that I could not communicate with any one on shore. But the captain and everybody on board were very kind to us when I had told my story. There was enough money in Richard’s pockets to pay for our passage and leave a modest amount when we should reach shore. It was a long voyage and a most trying one. The worst of it was that Richard no longer recognized me. He declared that he had never seen me before. He had the delusion that he was King Ingot of the Bars of Gold.”
“Poor father! Poor mother!” murmured Don, his heart wrung by the narration.
“But why didn’t you cable us the instant you got to shore?” asked the captain.