Page:The Black Cat v06no11 (1901-08).djvu/25

Rh amazement I soon discerned a floating substance that gradually took shape, though the whirl was so rapid that I could not define it, and then, with a swiftness that the eye could not follow, and in a manner impossible to describe exactly, the whirling motion ceased as the whole contents of the tub seemed to leap together. And there before me, lying on the bottom of a perfectly dry tub, was the body of my father.

I blinked my eyes and looked again—but there was no mistake. The miracle was a fact, and my father was alive and breathing regularly. Hawksley pushed me aside till he had felt the old man's pulse. Then he bade me help him lift the captain out and carry him up stairs.

"When I awaken him, do not tell him what you know; let me do the talking. Heavy, isn't he? Better flesh and better health than he's had for many a year—it's perfect now."

Astonishment kept me silent. We placed him in a chair in the shop, and Hawksley put on his clothes, hidden in a most ingenious locker, and held a vial to his nose. Presently he opened his eyes.

"Hello, Burke!" he exclaimed. "When did you come in? I must have had a long nap, Hawks. Devilish fine one, though, for I feel like a new man. Hawksley's remedies beat the world. He said he'd cure my rheumatism if I'd take his medicine, and damned if he hasn't. Hello! What's all that row?"

It was, as I expected, Higham, alarmed at my long absence, backed by a crowd. I showed my face at the glazed and curtained upper panel of the door, and told them to wait.

When father had stretched his limbs a bit, he helped us, in the same wondering way I had done, to bring to life the four other men confined in casks in the cellar, and when the city marshal and his men came at ten o'clock to make their search they not only found all whom they sought, but those persons assured them that they had come to Hawksley's and remained of their own free will, in order to be cured of their ills. So there was naught for the officers to do but go with the healed, when they departed; all save my father, who remained with Higham and myself to hear the wonderful tale which Jacob Hawksley had to tell.

"Of course, you think you have witnessed a miracle," he began,