you've ever been, in spite of your emphatic assurance."

"Tell me what you think, why you think it, and what you feel we ought
to do. Why, man, Myra might have been here alone, with no one to
rescue her and--and----"

"Quite so," said Ewart sympathetically. "So you must comfort yourself
with the knowledge that it may be a great blessing that she has
temporarily lost her sight. Now, I say you didn't faint, because,
medically, I know you didn't. For the same reason I say you were
suffocating as surely as if you had been drowning. Hang it, my dear
chap, it's my line of business, you know. I can't account for it, but
there is the naked fact for you."

"How does this affect your previous conclusions?" I asked. "Before you
tell me what you think brought on this suffocation I should like to
hear why you give up your theory."

"Simply because no wireless, or other electric current, could have
that effect upon you. If you had had an electric shock in any of its
many curious forms I could have said it bore me out; but, you see,
it's impossible. And, as I refuse to believe that we are continually
bumping into new mysteries which have no connection with each other,
it follows that if this suffocation was not caused by the supposed
wireless experiments, the other can't have been either."

"I'm not making the slightest imputation on your medical knowledge," I
ventured, "but are you absolutely certain that you are not mistaken?"

"My dear fellow," he laughed, "for goodness sake don't be so
apologetic. I can quite see that you find it difficult to believe. But
I am prepared to swear to it all the same. For one thing, the symptoms
were unmistakable; for another, it seems impossible that we should
both faint at exactly the same time and place for no reason at all."

"You didn't faint too, surely?" I cried.

"No," he admitted, "but we might very easily have been suffocated
together--smothered as surely as the princes in the Tower. When I saw
you were in difficulties I shouted to you. Obviously you didn't hear
me. I naturally didn't wait to see what would happen to you; I
cleared down the cliff, and sprinted to you as fast as I could. When I
came to within about twenty yards of you I found a difficulty in
breathing. I went on for a couple of paces, and realised that the air
was almost as heavy as water. So I rushed back, undid my collar, took
a deep breath; and bolted in to you, picked you up, and carted you
here. _Voila!_ But I v