back into Frank's arms, and was lowered on
the bed of grass.

Professor Scotch hastily felt the man's pulse, listened for the beating
of his heart, and then cried:

"Quick, Frank--the brandy! It may be too late, but we'll try to give him
a few more minutes of life."

"That's right!" palpitated Frank. "Bring him back to consciousness, for
we have not yet learned how to reach the Silver Palace."

"There is no such place as the Silver Palace," sharply declared the
professor, as he forced a few drops of brandy between the lips of the
unfortunate man. "The fellow has dreamed it."

"Perhaps."

"Perhaps! Why, Frank, I took you for a boy of more sense! Think--think
of the absurdity! It is impossible!"

"It may be."

"I know it is."

"Vell, maype you don'd nefer peen misdooken, brofessor?" insinuated
Hans, recovering for a moment from his dazed condition.

The professor did not notice the Dutch boy's words, for the man on the
bed of grass drew a long, fluttering breath and slowly opened his eyes.

"I thought I saw the palace once more," he whispered. "It was all a
delusion."

"That is true," nodded the professor, "it is all a delusion. Such a
place as this Silver Palace is an absurd impossibility. The illness
through which you have passed has affected your mind, and you dreamed of
the palace."

"It is not so!" returned the man, reproachfully. "I have proof! You
doubt me--you will not believe?"

"Be calm--be quiet," urged the professor. "This excitement will cut your
life short by minutes, and minutes are precious to you now."

"That is true; minutes are precious," hastily whispered the man. "It is
not the fever I am dying of--no, no! The water from the spring you may
see behind the hut--it has destroyed many people. This morning, before
you came, a peon found me here. He told me--he said the spring was
poison. The water robs men of strength--of life. I could not understand
him well. He went away and left me. I could see him running across the
desert, as if from a plague. And now I am dying--dying!"

"But the Silver Palace?" observed Frank Merriwell. "You are forgetting
that."

"Yah," nodded the Dutch lad; "you peen forgetting dot, ain'd id?"

"The proof," urged Frank. "You say you have proof."

"Yah," put in Hans; "you say you haf der broof. Vere id peen?"

"It is here," declared the unfortunate, as he fumbled beneath the straw.
"You are my countrymen--you have been kind to me. Alwin Bushnell may
never