ceedingly.

They gave him some pink fluid with a greenish fluorescence and a meaty
taste, and the assurance of returning strength grew.

"That--that makes me feel better," he said hoarsely, and there were
murmurs of respectful approval. He knew now quite clearly. He made to
speak again, and again he could not.

He pressed his throat and tried a third time. "How long?" he asked in a
level voice. "How long have I been asleep?"

"Some considerable time," said the flaxen-bearded man, glancing quickly
at the others.

"How long?"

"A very long time."

"Yes--yes," said Graham, suddenly testy. "But I want--Is it--it is--some
years? Many years? There was something--I forget what. I feel--confused.
But you--" He sobbed. "You need not fence with me. How long--?"

He stopped, breathing irregularly. He squeezed his eyes with his knuckles
and sat waiting for an answer.

They spoke in undertones.

"Five or six?" he asked faintly. "More?"

"Very much more than that."

"More!"

"More."

He looked at them and it seemed as though imps were twitching the muscles
of his face. He looked his question.

"Many years," said the man with the red beard.

Graham struggled into a sitting position. He wiped a rheumy tear from
his face with a lean hand. "Many years!" he repeated. He shut his eyes
tight, opened them, and sat looking about him from one unfamiliar thing
to another.

"How many years?" he asked.

"You must be prepared to be surprised."

"Well?"

"More than a gross of years."

He was irritated at the strange word. "More than a _what_?"

Two of them spoke together. Some quick remarks that were made about
"decimal" he did not catch.

"How long did you say?" asked Graham. "How long? Don't look like
that. Tell me."

Among the remarks in an undertone, his ear caught six words: "More than a
couple of centuries."

"_What_?" he cried, turning on the youth who he thought had spoken. "Who
says--? What was that? A couple of _centuries_!"

"Yes," said the man with the red beard. "Two hundred years."

Graham repeated the words. He had been prepared to hear of a vast repose,
and yet these concrete centuries defeated him.

"Two hundred years," he said again, with the figure of a great gulf
opening very slowly in his mind; and then, "Oh, but--!"

They said nothing.

"You--did you say--?"

"Two hundred years. Two centuries of years," said the man with the
red beard.

There was a pause. Graham looked at their fac