Page:Artabanzanus (Ferrar, 1896).djvu/96

88 smoking cap. His breeches, being tied at the knees, exhibited a very handsome pair of legs in dark silk or velvet stockings. Altogether I found that my heart was warming to him before he spoke a word.

He advanced to my bedside, bent over me quietly and in perfect silence, and gazed long and earnestly into my face. My eyes closed; oh the joy, the rapture of having a fellow creature, a being of flesh and blood, capable of feelings of consideration, of pity, near me again! I felt him feeling my pulse, and placing his hand lightly on my heart, then he felt my cheeks, and I think he held some kind of polished metal over my nose and lips. Without the slightest warning I saluted him with a loud and violent sneeze. It racked me through and through like an electric shock.

'Good, that's a capital sign,' said the stranger, 'but it's far too severe; we must stop that, but you're getting on splendidly; it's miraculous!' He spoke in a soft and, pleasing voice, and rubbed my nose with some kind of ointment which put an end to all inclination to sneeze.

'Do not speak,' he continued, 'you are not strong enough; you must be silent, and keep perfectly quiet for another week, and then you will be as right as ever; yes, stronger than you were before, and better able to fight your enemies, and write your adventures in a dozen volumes for the everlasting wonder, and incredible delight, of posterity. At present you must not even think: I will give you sedatives, and tonics, and febrifuges, and plenty of doses of my famous medicines, taxacorum squeezetalis and t. puffinalis, to pull you down and build you up again; and you will not have to pay through the nose, as you must whenever an apothecary above ground catches you by that useful organ. Drink some more of this—it is bracing you up in grand style, and giving new life to your blood.' He gently raised my head, and held a crystal cup to my lips; the liquor it