Cursed

“I’ll want a hypodermic when I come back – if I succeed in compounding the formula.”

“How long will you be?”

“If I’m very long – ” His look finished the phrase. Laura came close to Filhiol.

“Doctor,” she whispered, her face tense with terrible earnestness. “You must remember the formula. You can’t fail! There’s more than Hal’s life at stake, now. The captain – you’ve got to save him!”

“And you, too! Your happiness – that is to say, your life!” the old man answered, laying a hand on hers. “I understand it all, dear. All, perfectly. I needn’t tell you more than that!”

He turned toward the door.

“Captain Briggs, sir,” said he, “I was with you in the old days, and I’m with you now – all the way through. Courage, and don’t give up the ship!”

CHAPTER XLIV

NEW DAWN

Twenty minutes later, anxious fingers tapped at Filhiol’s door.

“Come!” bade the doctor. Laura entered.

“Forgive me,” she begged. “I – I couldn’t stay away. Dr. Marsh has got the wound closed. He says that, in itself, isn’t fatal. But – ”

She could not finish. From the hallway, through the open door, penetrated the smell of ether.

“The captain’s been just splendid!” said she. “And Ezra’s got his nerve back. I’ve helped as much as I could. Hal’s in the berth again.”

“What’s his condition?”

“Dr. Marsh says the heart action is very weak and slow.”

“Respiration?” And Filhiol peered over his glasses at her as he sat there before his washstand, on which he had spread a newspaper, now covered with various little piles of powder.

“Hardly ten to the minute. For God’s sake, doctor, do something! Haven’t you got the formula yet?”

“Not yet, Laura. It’s a very delicate compound, and I have no means here for making proper analyses, or even for weighing out minute quantities. I don’t suppose a man ever tried to work under such fearful handicaps.”

“I know,” she answered. “But – oh, there must be some way you can get it!”

Their eyes met and silence came. On the porch roof, below the doctor’s window, the rain was ruffling all its drums. The window, rattled in its sash, seemed in the grip of some jinnee that sought to force entrance. Filhiol glanced down at his little powders and said:

“Here’s what I’m up against, Laura. I’m positively sure one of these two nearest me is correct. But I can’t tell which.”

“Why not test them?”

“One or the other is fearfully poisonous. My old brain doesn’t work as well as it used to, and after fifty years – But, yes, one of these two here,” and he pointed at the little conical heaps nearest him with the point of the knife wherewith he had been mixing them, “one of these two must be the correct formula. The other – well, it’s deadly. I don’t know which is which.”

“If you knew definitely which one was poisonous,” asked she, “would that make you certain of the other?”

“Yes,” he answered, not at all understanding. “But without the means of making qualitative analyses, or the time for them, how can I find out?”

She had come close, and now stood at his left side. Before he could advance a hand to stop her, she had caught up, between thumb and finger, a little of the powder nearest her and had put it into her mouth.

“Holy Lord, girl!” shouted the old man, springing up. His chair clashed to the floor. “How do you know which – ”

“I’ll know in a few moments, won’t I?” she asked. “And then you’ll be able to give the right one to Hal?”

The old doctor could only stare at her. Then he groaned, and began to cry. The tears that had not flowed in years were flowing now. For the first time in all that long and lonesome life, without the love of woman to soften it, he had realized what manner of thing a woman’s love can be.

She remained there, smiling a little, untroubled, calm. The doctor blinked away his tears, ashamed.

“Laura,” said he, “I didn’t think there was anything like that in the world. I didn’t think there was any woman anywhere like you. It’s too wonderful for any words. So I won’t talk about it. But tell me, now, what sensations do you get?” His face grew anxious with a very great fear. He came close to her, took her hand, closely watched her. “Do you feel anything yet?”

“There’s a kind of stinging sensation on my tongue,” she answered, with complete quietude, as though the scales of life and death for her had not an even balance. “And – well, my mouth feels a little numb and cold. Is that the poison?”

“Do you experience any dizziness?” His voice was hardly audible. By the lamp-light his pale face and widened eyes looked very strange. “Does your heart begin to accelerate? Here, let me see!”

He took her wrist, carefully observing the pulse.

“No, doctor,” she answered, “I don’t feel anything except just what I’ve already told you.”

“Thank the good God for that!” he exclaimed, letting her hand fall. “You’re all right. You got the harmless powder. Laura, you’re – you’re too wonderful for me even to try to express it. You’re – ”

“We’re wasting time here!” she exclaimed. “Every second’s precious. You know which powder to use, now. Come along!”

“Yes, you’re right. I’ll come at once.” He turned, took up the knife, and with its blade scraped on to a bit of paper the powder that the girl had tested. This he wrapped up carefully and tucked into his waistcoat-pocket.

“Dow-nstairs, Laura!” said he. “If we can pull him through, it’s you that have saved him – it’s you!”

The thud of the old doctor’s feet seemed to echo in the captain’s heart like thunders of doom. He got up from beside the berth and faced the door, like a man who waits the summons to walk forth at dawn and face the firing-squad. Dr. Marsh, still seated by the berth, frowned and shook his head. Evidently he had no faith in this old man, relic of a school past and gone, who claimed to know strange secrets of the Orient.

“This boy is dying,” thought Marsh. “I don’t believe in all this talk about curaré. He’s dying of hemorrhage and shock. His pulse and respiration are practically nil– his skin is dusky with suffocation already. Even if the old chap has a remedy, he’s too late. Hal’s gone – and it will kill the captain, too. What a curse seems to have hung to this family! Wiped out, all wiped out!”

In the doorway appeared Laura and old Filhiol. The girl’s face was burning with excitement. The doctor’s eyes shone strangely.

“Still alive, is he?” demanded Filhiol.

“Yes,” answered Marsh. “But you’ve got no time for more than one experiment.”

“Got it, Filhiol?” choked the captain. His hands twitched with appeal. “Tell me you’ve – got it!”

“Water! The hypodermic needle!” directed Filhiol, his voice a whiplash.

He mixed the powder in a quarter-glass of water, and drew the solution up into the glass barrel of the syringe. Ezra, unable to bear any further strain, sank down in a chair, buried his face in both hands and remained there, motionless. Dr. Marsh, frankly skeptical, watched in silence. The girl, her arm about the captain, was whispering something to him. Through the room sounded a hollow roaring, blent of surf and tempest and wind-buffetings of the great chimney.

Filhiol handed the hypodermic to Marsh.

“Administer this,” he commanded. “Your hands have been sterilized, and mine haven’t. We mustn’t even waste the time for me to scrub up, and I’m taking no chances at all with any non-surgical conditions.”