'Farewell, Nikola'

"You really wish it?"

"I believe it is the only thing that will save her life," I answered. "But you must come quickly, or it will be too late. She was sinking when I left the hotel."

With a hand that never shook he poured the contents of the glass into a small phial, and then placed the latter in his pocket.

"I am at your disposal now," he answered. "We will set off as soon as you like. As you say, we must lose no time."

"But will it not be necessary for you to take some drugs with you?" I asked.

"I am taking this one," he replied, placing his hat upon his head as he spoke.

I remembered that he had been making his prescription up as I entered the room. Had he then intended calling to see her, even supposing I had not come to ask his assistance? I had no chance of putting the question to him, however.

"Have you a gondola below?" he asked, as we went down the stairs.

I replied in the affirmative; and when we gained the hall door we descended the steps and took our places in it. On reaching the hotel I conducted him to the drawing-room, where we found the Dean and Glenbarth eagerly awaiting our coming. I presented the former to Nikola, and then went off to inform my wife of his arrival. She accompanied me back to the drawing-room, and when she entered the room Nikola crossed it to receive her. Though she looked at him in a frightened way I thought his manner soon put her at her ease.

"Perhaps you will be kind enough to take me to my patient," he said, when they had greeted each other. "As the case is so serious, I had better lose no time in seeing her."

He followed my wife from the room, and then we sat down to await his verdict, with what anxiety you may imagine.

Of all that transpired during his stay with Miss Trevor I can only speak from hearsay. My wife, however, was unfortunately too agitated to remember everything that occurred. She informed me that on entering the room he advanced very quietly towards the bed, and for a few moments stood looking down at the frail burden it supported. Then he felt her pulse, lifted the lids of her eyes, and for a space during which a man might have counted fifty slowly, laid his hand upon her forehead. Then, turning to the nurse, who had of course heard of the withdrawal of the other doctors, he bade her bring him a wine-glass of iced water. She disappeared, and while she was absent Nikola sat by the bedside holding the sick girl's hand, and never for a moment taking his eyes from her face. Presently the woman returned, bringing the water as directed. He took it from her, and going to the window poured from a phial, which he had taken from his pocket, some twenty drops of the dark liquid it contained. Then with a spoon he gave her nearly half of the contents of the glass. This done he once more seated himself beside the bed, and waited patiently for the result. Several times within the next half-hour he bent over the recumbent figure, and was evidently surprised at not seeing some change which he expected would take place. At the end of that time he gave her another spoonful of the liquid, and once more sat down to watch. When an hour had passed he permitted a sigh of satisfaction to escape him, then, turning to my wife, whose anxiety was plainly expressed upon her face, he said —

"I think, Lady Hatteras, that you may tell them that she will not die. There is still much to be done, but I pledge my word that she will live."

The reaction was too much for my wife; she felt as if she were choking, then she turned giddy, and at last was possessed with a frantic desire to cry. Softly leaving the room, she came in search of us. The moment that she opened the door of the drawing-room, and I looked upon her face, I knew that there was good news for us.

"What does he say about her?" cried the Duke, forgetting the Dean's presence, while the latter rose and drew a step nearer, without speaking a word.

"There is good news," she said, fumbling with her handkerchief in a suspicious manner. "Doctor Nikola says she will live."

"Thank God," we all said in one breath. And Glenbarth murmured something more that I did not catch.

So implicit was our belief in Nikola that, as you have doubtless observed, we accepted his verdict without a second thought. I kissed my wife, and then shook hands solemnly with the Dean. The Duke had meanwhile vanished, presumably to his own apartment, where he could meditate on certain matters undisturbed. After that Phyllis left us and returned to the sick-room, where she found Nikola still seated beside the bed, just as she had left him. So far as she could judge, Miss Trevor did not appear to be any different, though perhaps she did not breathe as heavily as she had hitherto done. Nikola, however, appeared to be well satisfied. He nodded approvingly to Phyllis as she entered, and then returned to his contemplation of his patient once more. In this fashion hour after hour went by. Once during each my wife would come to me with reassuring bulletins. "Miss Trevor was, if anything, a little better, she did not seem so restless as before." "The fever seemed to be abating;" and then, towards nine o'clock that night, "at last Gertrude was sleeping peacefully." It was not, however, until nearly midnight that Nikola himself made his appearance.

"The worst is over," he said, approaching the Dean; "your daughter is now asleep, and will only require watching for the next two hours. At the end of that time I shall return, and shall hope to find a decided improvement in her condition."

"I can never thank you enough, my dear sir," said the worthy old clergyman, shaking the other by the hand while the tears ran down his wrinkled cheeks. "But for your wonderful skill there can be no sort of doubt that she would be lost to us now. She is my only child, my ewe lamb, and may Heaven bless you for your goodness to me."

I thought that Nikola looked at him rather curiously as he said this. It was the first time I had seen Nikola brought into the society of a dignitary of the English Church, and I was anxious to see how the pair comported themselves under the circumstances. A couple more diametrically opposite could be scarcely imagined. They were as oil and water, and could scarcely be expected to assimilate.

"Sir, I should have been less than human if I had not done everything possible to save that beautiful young life," said Nikola, with what was to me the suggestion of a double meaning in his speech. "And now you must permit me to bid you good-bye for the present. In two hours I shall return again."

Thinking he might prefer to remain near his patient, I pressed him to stay at the hotel, offering to do all that lay in my power to make him comfortable. But he would not hear of such a thing.

"As you should be aware by this time, I never rest away from my own house," he answered, in a tone that settled the matter once and for all. "If anything should occur in the meantime, send for me and I will come at once. I do not apprehend any change, however."

When he had gone I went in search of the Duke and found him in his own room.

"Dick," he said, "look at me and tell me if you can see any difference. I feel as though I had passed through years of suffering. Another week would have made an old man of me. How is she now?"

"Progressing famously," I answered. "You need not look so sceptical, for this must surely be the case, since Nikola has gone home to take some rest and will not return for two hours."

He wrung my hand on hearing this.

"How little I dreamt," he said, "when we were confined in that wretched room in Port Said, and when he played that trick upon me in Sydney, that some day he was destined to do me the greatest service any man has ever done me in my life. Didn't I tell you that those other medicos did not know what they were doing, and that Nikola is the greatest doctor in the world?"

I admitted that he had given me the first assurance, but I was not quite so certain about the latter. Then, realizing how he must be feeling, I proposed that we should row down the canal for a breath of fresh sea air. At first the Duke was for refusing the invitation, eventually however he assented, and when we had induced the Dean to accompany us we set off. When we reached the hotel once more it was to discover that Nikola had returned, and that he had again taken up his watch in the sick-room. He remained there all night, passing hour after hour at the bedside, without, so my wife asserted, moving, save to give the medicine, and without apparently feeling the least fatigue.

It was not until between seven and eight o'clock next morning that I caught a glimpse of him. He was in the dining-room then, partaking of a small cup of black coffee, into which he had poured some curious decoction of his own. For my part I have never yet been able to discover how Nikola managed to keep body and soul together on his frugal fare.

"How is the patient this morning?" I asked, when we had greeted each other.

"Out of danger," he replied, slowly stirring his coffee as he spoke. "She will continue to progress now. I hope you are satisfied that I have done all I can in her interests?"

"I am more than satisfied," I answered. "I am deeply grateful. As her father said yesterday, if it had not been for you, Nikola, she must inevitably have succumbed. She will have cause to bless your name for the remainder of her existence."

He looked at me very curiously as I said this.

"Do you think she will do that?" he asked, with unusual emphasis. "Do you think it will please her to remember that she owes her life to me?"

"I am sure she will always be deeply grateful," I replied, somewhat ambiguously. "I fancy you know that yourself."

"And your wife? What does she say?"

"She thinks you are certainly the greatest of all doctors," I answered, with a laugh. "I feel that I ought to be jealous, but strangely enough I'm not."

"And yet I have done nothing so very wonderful," he continued, almost as if he were talking to himself. "But that those other blind worms are content to go on digging in their mud, when they should be seeking the light in another direction, they could do as much as I have done. By the way, have you seen our friend, Don Martinos, since you dined together at my house?"

I replied to the effect that I had not done so, but reported that the Don had sent repeated messages of sympathy to us during Miss Trevor's illness. I then inquired whether Nikola had seen him?

"I saw him yesterday morning," he replied. "We devoted upwards of four hours to exploring the city together."

I could not help wondering how the Don had enjoyed the excursion, but, needless to remark, I did not say anything on this score to my companion.

That night Nikola was again in attendance upon his patient. Next day she was decidedly better; she recognized her father and my wife, and every hour was becoming more and more like her former self.

"Was she surprised when she regained consciousness to find Nikola at her bedside?" I inquired of Phyllis when the great news was reported to me.

"Strangely enough she was not," Phyllis replied. "I fully expected, remembering my previous suspicions, that it would have a bad effect upon her, but it did nothing of the kind. It was just as if she had expected to find him there."

"And what were his first words to her?"

"'I hope you are feeling better, Miss Trevor,' he said, and she replied, 'Much better,' that was all. It was as commonplace as could be."

Next day Nikola only looked in twice, the day after once, and at the end of the week informed me that she stood in no further need of his attention.

"How shall we ever be able to reward you, Nikola?" I asked, for about the hundredth time, as we stood together in the corridor outside the sick-room.