Page:Doughty--Mirrikh or A woman from Mars.djvu/239

 “I think it as unnecessary as it is under existing conditions impossible. Before we parted, Mr. Mirrikh promised that matter should be attended to, and rely upon it he will  keep his word. By the way, George, he sent his warmest regards to you, and to you too, Doctor. He said that it was not likely he should ever return to earth again for a permanent stay, but if he did he should certainly look you up.”

“Then by Jove! I hope he won’t look me up!” growled the Doctor; “for my part I’ve seen quite enough of him.”

Maurice laughed; begging a match of me he proceeded to light the pipe.

“Ah, this is like old times,” he said, giving two or three preliminary puffs.

For ten or fifteen minutes we sat there chatting quite comfortably. Indeed Maurice was so much the old Maurice that I was just beginning to wonder if it would not come around all right, when all at once he was seized with a  most violent fit of coughing and choking and the pipe  dropped from his hand.

“Oh God! Oh! Oh! This is frightful!” he groaned. “Oh, I am suffocating! I’ve done it now! George! George! Help her! Help!”

He pressed his hand to his forehead, half arose, but instantly fell back again, his face deathly white.

Then relief came, and the Doctor felt that his efforts to increase the consumption of rice in this section of Thibet  had been wasted. As he gasped and choked I saw that strange look creep over his face again, and with it came a  change of speech, and Maurice began muttering wildly in  the unknown tongue.

“Tobacco sick, by Jove!” cried the Doctor. “An old smoker too! Can’t account for it. What’s he mumbling about? What did he mean by upon calling you to help her?”

“Let us help him," I answered hastily. “Come Doctor, we must get him to my bed.”

“Which being of sand is a shade softer than the stone. All right, my boy. Maurice, you’ll have to walk now.”

But there was no Maurice to answer us so far as intelligence went. He kept on muttering strange words and wept, holding out his hands beseechingly. The Doctor took him on one side and I on the other and together we raised  him up. It was painful to witness the struggle he made to walk. He would plant one foot forward and hold on to us