“And how long will he remain in this condition?” asked Carpentaria, full of joy and relief. “Till you go and bring me some snuff. Snuff is the best thing in these cases.” “And he’ll be perfectly well again?” “Yes, in a day or two.” “He’ll remember--things?” “Of course he will! Shall I go for that snuff, or will you?” “I will run,” said Carpentaria, and he ran. CHAPTER XI--The Return to Life It was half-past seven o’clock on Monday evening. More than thirty hours had elapsed since young Rivers first began his operations to restore life to the cataleptic patient, and he was only just succeeding in an affair which had proved extremely difficult and protracted. Young Rivers, in fact, had found out during the watches of Sunday night and the sunny morning of Monday that the disease (if catalepsy may be called a disease) has a habit of flatly defying the rules of medical text-books and the experience of even the youngest doctors. But ultimately he had triumphed, though not by means of the famous snuff, which Carpentaria had obtained, after exhaustive research, from a bass-fiddle player in his band. The patient reclined, alive, conscious, capable of movement and speech, but otherwise a prodigious enigma, in an arm-chair in Carpentaria’s bedroom. His existence was a profound secret from all except the doctor and the musician. And now these two, who had brought him back to earthly life, wanted him to talk, to explain himself, to unravel the mysteries of Saturday afternoon and Saturday night. And Carpentaria, dressed in his uniform, waited, watch in hand; for in half an hour the daily concert must commence in the Oriental Gardens. Nothing could interfere with Carpentaria’s presence in the gorgeous illuminated bandstand. He had sacrificed his interest in his half-sister, his curiosity about the doings of the Ilams, his inspection of the affairs of the City, and even a rehearsal, to the care of the recovering cataleptic, but the concert itself, with its audience of a hundred thousand or so, could not be sacrificed. “So you are Carpentaria?” murmured the patient, sipping at a glass of hot milk. His age now appeared to be fifty. He had grey hair and a short grey beard, rather whiter than the hair, and his eyes bore the expression of a man who has found that life bears no striking resemblance to a good joke. His hands moved nervously over the surfaces of the chair. “Yes,” Carpentaria admitted; “and you?” It was the first direct question that he had ventured to put to the enigma, and the enigma ignored it. “You say I was buried and you unburied me?” he pursued. “Yes,” said Carpentaria enthusiastically, and he described the journeys, the disappearances and the reappearances, of the body of the enigma on the opening night. “I suppose I should have died really, if I’d been left alone?” the enigma demanded of Rivers. “Undoubtedly,” said Rivers. “Undoubtedly,” he repeated. The enigma turned almost fiercely on Carpentaria.