Page:Blue Magic.djvu/148

 saw the placid, sluggish river winding between its pale banks under the full moon, and could not think this anything but a ghastly dream. Yet Cynthia was there, her eyes, wide with anxiety and fatigue, fixed on him, cheering him, encouraging him. The mother crouched white-faced beside the bed—her son had grown passionately dear to her, now that there was a chance of losing him. ..

The doctor leaned suddenly forward, and then straightened with a curious expression.

"He is asleep," he said, and then—"seventeen minutes after twelve."

Siddereticus stopped singing. Fen was breathing regularly, and much more easily, in quiet sleep. The doctor insisted that