Cursed

“I hate to tell you!”

The old man caught his breath, but never flinched.

“Tell me!” he commanded. Laura peered in silence, very white. “I can stand it. Tell me all there is to tell!”

“Well, captain, from what I find here – there can be no doubt – ”

“No doubt of what?”

“The blade that stabbed Hal was – ”

“That poisoned kris?”

Filhiol nodded silently.

“God above! The curse – retribution!”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, captain, drop all that nonsense!” flared out the doctor from taut nerves. “This is no time for your infernal superstitions! We’ve got all we can handle without cluttering things up with a mess of rubbish. We’ve got a long, hard fight on our hands.”

“I know. But you can save him, doctor! You must!”

“I’ll do all in human power. This wound here I’m not in a position to deal with. Your local doctor can attend to that. It isn’t the vital feature of this case. The poison is!”

“You’ve got a remedy for that, haven’t you? You said you had!”

“Do you realize it’s been an hour, perhaps, since this wound was made? If the curaré had been fresh and new – ” He finished with an expressive gesture. “It’s old and dried, and some of it must have been worn off the blade. Perhaps, not a great deal got into the cut. There’s a chance, a fighting chance – perhaps.”

“Then the remedy! Quick, doctor! Get it, make it!”

“I’ve got to wait till the physician comes. I’ve got no drugs with me.”

“Will he have the right ones?”

“They’re common enough. It all depends on the formula, the exact mixture.”

“You remember them?”

“Maybe I can, if you don’t disturb my mind too much.”

“I’ll be quiet, doctor. You just order me, and I’ll do anything you say,” the old man promised abjectly. His eyes were cavernous with suffering. “Lord God! why don’t Dr. Marsh come?”

“Hal here is suffering from a general paralysis,” said Filhiol. “This curaré is peculiar stuff.” He laid his ear to Hal’s chest, listened a moment, then raised his head. “There’s some heart-action yet,” said he. “Our problem is to keep it going, and the respiration, till the effects pass. It’s quite possible Hal isn’t unconscious. He may know what’s going on. With this poison the victim feels and knows and understands, and yet can’t move hand or foot. In fact, he’s reduced to complete helplessness.”

“And yet you call me superstitious when I talk retribution!” the captain whispered tensely. “I lived by force in the old days. He, poor boy, put all his faith and trust in it; he made it his God, and worshipped it. And now – he’s struck down, helpless – ”

“It is strange,” Filhiol had to admit. “I don’t believe in anything like that. But certainly this is very, very strange. Yes, your grandson is more helpless now than any child. Even if he lives, he’ll be helpless for a long time, and very weak for months and months. This kind of curaré used by the upper Malay people is the most diabolical stuff ever concocted. Its effects are swift and far-reaching; they last a long, long time, in case they don’t kill at once. Hal can never be the same man he used to be, captain. You’ve got to make up your mind to that, anyhow.”

“Thank the Lord for it!” the old man fervently ejaculated. “Thank the good Lord above!”

“If he lives, he may sometime get back a fair amount of strength. He may be as well as an average man, but the days of his unbridled power and his terrific force are all over. His fighting heart and arrogant soul are gone, never to return.”

“God is being very good to me!” cried Briggs, tears starting down his wrinkled cheeks.

“Amen to that!” said Laura. “I don’t care what he’ll be, doctor. Only give him back to me!”

“He’ll be an invalid a very long time, girl.”

“And all that time I can nurse him and love him back to health!”

Footsteps suddenly clattered on the porch. The front door flung open.

“Laura! Are you all right? Are you safe?” cried a new voice.

“There’s my father!” exclaimed the girl. “And there’s Dr. Marsh, with him!”

Into the cabin penetrated two men. Nathaniel Maynard – thin, gray, wiry – stood staring. The physician, brisk and competent, set his bag on a chair and peeled off his coat, dripping rain.

“Laura! Tell me – ”

“Not now, father! Shhh! I’m all right, every way. But Hal here – ”

“We won’t have any unnecessary conversation, Mr. Maynard,” directed Dr. Marsh. He approached the berth. “What is this, now? Stab-wound? Ah, yes. Well, I’ll wash right up and get to work.”

“Do, please,” answered Filhiol. “You can handle it alone, all right. I’ve got a job of my own. There’s poisoning present, too. Curaré.”

“Curaré!” exclaimed Marsh, amazed. “That’s most unusual! Are you sure?”

“I didn’t serve on ships in the Orient, for nothing,” answered Filhiol with asperity. “My diagnosis is absolute. There was dried curaré on the blade that stabbed this man. It’s a very complex poison – either C18H35N, or C10H35N. Only one man, Sir Robert Schomburg, ever found out how the natives make it, and only one man – myself – ever learned the secret of the antidote.”

“So, so?” commented Marsh, rolling up his shirt-sleeve. He set out antiseptics, dressings, pads, drainage, and proceeded to scrub up. “We can’t do this work here in the berth. Clear the desk, Ezra,” he directed. “It’s long enough for an operating-table. Make up a bed there – a few blankets and a clean sheet. Then we can lift him over. We’ll strip his chest as he lies – cut the clothes off. Lively, every one! Curaré, eh? I never came in contact with it, Dr. Filhiol. I’m not above asking its physiological effects.”

“It’s unique,” answered Filhiol. He got up from beside the wounded man and approached the chair on which stood the doctor’s bag. “It produces a type of pure motor-paralysis, acting on the end plates of the muscles and the peripheral end-organs of the motor-nerves. First it attacks the voluntary muscles, and then those of respiration. It doesn’t cause unconsciousness, however. The patient here may know all that’s going on, but he can’t make a sign. Don’t trust to this apparent unconsciousness in exploring the wound. Give plenty of anesthetic, just as if he seemed fully conscious.”

“Glad you told me that,” said Marsh, nodding. “How about stimulants, or even a little nitroglycerine for the heart?”

“Useless. There’s just one remedy.”

“And you’ve got it?”

“I can compound it, I think. It’s a secret, given me fifty years ago by a Parsee in Bombay. He’d have lost his life for having given it, if it had been known. Let me have some of your drugs, will you?”

“Help yourself,” answered Marsh, drying his hands.

While Laura and the captain watched in silence, Filhiol opened the bag, and after some deliberation chose three vials.

“All right,” said he. “Now you to your work, and I to mine!”

“Got everything you need?”