CHAPTER XXI LOVE ETERNAL Godfrey awoke and looked about him. He was lying in a small room opposite to an open window that had thin gauze shutters which, as an old Indian, he knew at once were to keep out mosquitoes. Through this window he could see the mighty, towering shapes of the Pyramids, and reflected that after all there must have been some truth in those wonderful dreams. He lifted his hand; it was so thin that the strong sunlight shone through it. He touched his head and felt that it was wrapped in bandages, also that it seemed benumbed upon one side. A little dark woman wearing a nurse’s uniform, entered the room and he asked her where he was, as once before he had done in France and under very similar conditions. She stared and answered with an Irish accent: “Where else but at Mena House Hospital. Don’t the Pyramids tell you that?” “I thought so,” he replied. “How long have I been here?” “Oh! two months, or more. I can’t tell you, Colonel, unless I look at the books, with so many sick men coming and going. Shure! it’s a pleasure to see you yourself again. We thought that perhaps you’d never wake up reasonably.” “Did you? I always knew that I should.” “And how did you know that?” “Because someone whom I am very fond of, came and told me so.” She glanced at him sharply. “Then it’s myself that should be flattered,” she answered, “or the night nurse, seeing that it is we who have cared for you with no visitors admitted except the doctors, and they didn’t talk that way. Now, Colonel, just you drink this and have a nap, for you mustn’t speak too much all at once. If you keep wagging your jaw you’ll upset the bandages.” When he woke again it was night and now the full moon, such a moon as one sees in Egypt, shone upon the side of the Great Pyramid and made it silver. He could hear voices talking outside his door, one that of the Irish nurse which he recognised, and the other of a man, for although they spoke low, this sense of hearing seemed to be peculiarly acute to him. “It is so, Major,” said the nurse. “I tell you that except for a little matter about someone whom he thought had been visiting him, he is as reasonable as I am, and much more than you are, saving your presence.” “Well,” answered the doctor, “as you speak the truth sometimes, Sister, I’m inclined to believe you, but all I have to say is that I could have staked my professional reputation that the poor chap would never get his wits again. He has had an awful blow and on the top of an old wound, too. After all these months, it’s strange, very strange, and I hope it will continue.” “Well, of course, Major, there is the delusion about the lady.” “Lady! How do you know it was a lady? Just like a woman making up a romance out of nothing. Yes, there’s the delusion, which is bad. Keep his mind off it as much as possible, and tell him some of your own in your best brogue. I’ll come and examine him to-morrow morning.”