Baltazar’s face was almost as ghastly, and horrible fear dwelt in his eyes. He pointed. “There!” he said, and drew the doctor forward and motioned to the others to remain. Together they bent down over Quong Ho. “If he’s dead,” Baltazar whispered in a hoarse voice, “it’s I who have murdered him.” “He’s not dead yet,” replied the doctor. “Thank God!” said Baltazar. Sergeant Doubleday, surveying the scene of ruin with the eye of the policeman and the Briton, turned to Mr. Pillivant. “This sort of thing oughtn’t to be allowed,” said he. CHAPTER VIII BALTAZAR awoke a couple of mornings afterwards to find that certain vague happenings which he had regarded as dreams were true. He really lay in a comfortable bed, in a pleasant room; the soft-voiced woman in grey, whose ministrations he had been unable to divine, stood smiling at the foot of his bed, an unmistakable nurse. Conscious of discomfort, he raised his hand and felt his head swathed in a close-fitting, scientific bandage. He remembered now that he had lain there for a considerable time. What he had taken for outrageous assaults on his brain for the purpose of extracting the secrets of his mathematical researches, had been the doctor dressing his wounds. “How are you this morning?” asked the nurse. “Perfectly well, thank you,” said Baltazar. “I should feel better if you would tell me where I am.” “This is Mr. Pillivant’s house.” “Pillivant—Pillivant? Oh yes. I’ve got it. It seems as if I had been off my head for a bit.” The nurse nodded. “I’m all right now. Let me put things together.” Suddenly he sat up. “My God! How is Quong Ho?” “He is getting on as well as can be expected,” replied the nurse. “He’s alive? Quite sure?” “Quite sure.” Baltazar fell back on the pillow. “The last thing I remember clearly was their taking him into the Cottage Hospital, after that infernal jolting across the moor. What happened then?” “You collapsed, and they brought you here.” “What day is it?” “Friday.” “Good Lord,” said Baltazar, “I’ve been here since midday Wednesday.” “Would you like a little breakfast?” “I should like a lot,” declared Baltazar. The nurse laughed. The patient was better. She turned to leave the room, but Baltazar checked her. “Before you go just tell me if I’ve got the situation clear. The European war has been going on for two years. In the course of a new-fangled kind of warfare the Germans drop bombs from Zeppelins over England. A Zeppelin dropped bombs on my house on Tuesday night—to get rid of them—so Mrs. Pillivant said. You see, everything’s coming back to me. Afterwards it came down in flames, and all the crew were burned. Is that right?” “Perfectly,” said the nurse. “Now I know more or less where I am,” said Baltazar. The nurse fetched his breakfast, which he ate with appetite. He had barely finished when Dr. Rewsby entered. “This is capital. Capital,” said he. “Sitting up and taking nourishment. How’s the pulse?”