When the World Shook: Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and ArbuthnotHaggard, H. Rider (Henry Rider)
Science
When the World Shook: Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot
Haggard, H. Rider (Henry Rider)
Adventure stories; Science fiction
“Well, I never!” he said, “you seem to have woke them up with a
vengeance. If you begin like _that_ with the lady, there will be
complications before you have done, Arbuthnot.”
Talk of being brought back to earth with a rush! I could have killed
Bastin, and Bickley, turning on him like a tiger, told him to be off,
find wood and light a large fire in front of the statue. I think he was
about to argue when the Ancient gave him a glance of his fierce eyes,
which alarmed him, and he departed, bewildered, to return presently
with the wood.
But the sound of his voice had broken the spell. The Lady let her arms
fall with a start, and shut her eyes again, seeming to faint. Bickley
sprang forward with his sal volatile and applied it to her nostrils,
the Ancient not interfering, for he seemed to recognise that he had to
deal with a man of skill and one who meant well by them.
In the end we brought her round again and, to omit details, Bickley
gave her, not coffee and brandy, but a mixture he compounded of hot
water, preserved milk and meat essence. The effect of it on her was
wonderful, since a few minutes after swallowing it she sat up in the
coffin. Then we lifted her from that narrow bed in which she had slept
for—ah! how long? and perceived that beneath her also were crystal
boxes of the radiant, heat-giving substance. We sat her on the floor of
the sepulchre, wrapping her also in a blanket.
Now it was that Tommy, after frisking round her as though in welcome of
an old friend, calmly established himself beside her and laid his black
head upon her knee. She noted it and smiled for the first time, a
marvelously sweet and gentle smile. More, she placed her slender hand
upon the dog and stroked him feebly.
Bickley tried to make her drink some more of his mixture, but she
refused, motioning him to give it to Tommy. This, however, he would not
do because there was but one cup. Presently both of the sleepers began
to shiver, which caused Bickley anxiety. Abusing Bastin beneath his
breath for being so long with the fire, he drew the blankets closer
about them.
Then an idea came to him and he examined the glowing boxes in the
coffin. They were loose, being merely set in prepared cavities in the
crystal. Wrapping our handkerchiefs about his hand, he took them out
and placed them around the wakened patients, a proceeding of which the
Ancient nodded approval. Just then, too, Bastin returned with his first
load of firewood, and soon we had a merry blaze going just outside the
sepulchre. I saw that they observed the lighting of this fire by means
of a match with much interest.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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