Page:Doughty--Mirrikh or A woman from Mars.djvu/211

 sensations one feels when recovering from a fainting fit.

“Wylde! Wylde! Wake up! Wylde! Wylde! Speak to me, for God’s sake!” some one was shouting in my ears.

It was the Doctor’s voice.

I was surrounded by utter darkness lying upon a couch as hard as stone.

“! Breakfast! Come Wylde, turn out! All is ready for our sumptuous repast!”

A month has elapsed since my return from Mars and again the Doctor’s hand is upon my shoulder; he is shaking  me violently. I rub my eyes, yawn, straighten up and stare about.

The sight is not a cheerful one. Surrounding me are the walls of a vast cavern, possessed of none of that beauty  of caverns about which poets and novelists love to rave. There are no snowy stalactites nor glittering stalagmites, nothing but the black, ragged rock, all dripping with moisture where the gloom permits my eyes to penetrate. The floor is of sand, mingled with which are whitish fragments  strewn in every direction; these, though they have long  since lost their terrors, never cease to be disquieting; they  are human bones; bones of men who lived out their lives in  ages long gone by; a musty odor seems to arise from them;  the air is damp and chilly; rheumatic pains rack my own  unfortunate bones as I stagger to my feet.

“Don’t you want any breakfast?” asked the Doctor gloomily. “Not that I blame you much if you don’t, for the fodder we’ve been subsisting on these last four weeks is  enough to make a horse sick. You had better come and take your share though, for there will be no more until to-morrow. If we ever expect to escape we must keep up the physical no matter how our spirits flag.”

“So you are beginning to acknowledge the existence of spirit, Doctor?” I said slyly.

“Pshaw! Don’t you begin nagging thus early in the