‘Aha! you are Angleesh,’ exclaimed the man in his deep voice, and he added in French, ‘Stop! I will go and fetch Alphonse.’
His shapeless bulk moved away from the side of the shelf and I lay motionless, with my eyes fixed upon the bright circle of glass upon which the reflection of sunny waters without was dancing. But I do not know what I thought of. I cannot remember that any sort of determinable idea visited me. My mind seemed empty, with one strange question for ever dully echoing in it: Who am I? Yet I also seemed to know that I was not mad. I could not tell who I was, but I felt that I was not mad. I do not say that my instincts assured me of this; I seemed to be sensible of it passively. It was a perception independent of all effort of mind, a knowledge wholly involuntary as the action of the heart is involuntary.
In a few minutes I heard the door-handle rattle again and two figures came to the side of the shelf on which I lay. One was the same stout personage that had previously visited me; the other was a clean, fresh-looking young man of the age of four or five and twenty, smoothly shaven, with coal black hair and eyes, his face of a pronounced French type. He was fairly well dressed in a suit of grey, and his white shirt collar was buttoned low so as to expose the whole of his long throat and even a portion of his chest. His posture suggested an air of habitual attention and respect, and after he had peered a while and observed that my eyes were open he removed his cap.
‘Speak to her Alphonse,’ said the large stout man.
‘How do you do, madame? How do you now feel?’ said the younger man in good English, pronouncing the words with an excellent accent.
I answered faintly, ‘I believe I am dying. Where am I?’
‘Oh,’ he exclaimed quickly, ‘you have not eaten, you have not drunken. It is impossible for people to live unless they eat and drink.’
He then addressed himself hurriedly to the fat man, who acquiesced with a grunt and a gesture of the hand. The young man went out, whilst the other remained at my side, fixedly staring at me. Even had I been able to exert my mind for conversation I could not have found my voice. It pained me to whisper. The stout man addressed me once in barbarous English; I languidly gazed at him in silence through my half-closed eyelids, and no more was said until the young man returned, bearing in one hand a cup and saucer and in the other hand a tumbler. The cup contained some warm soup; the tumbler some weak brandy and water. Now ensued a brief discussion between the two men as to whether the brandy should be administered before the soup or the soup before the brandy. The younger man’s views prevailed and, correctly judging that I was unable to feed myself, he drew the cane-bottom chair to my side, seated himself and fed me.
The fat man stood with a stolid countenance, looking on. When I had swallowed the soup the young man applied the tumbler to my lips and I slowly drank.
‘Now,’ said the young man, ‘do you feel more comfortable?’