the shock is passing.... Don't talk."

Time moved on again; space slowly contracted into a symmetrical shape,
set with little points of light; sleep and fatigue alternated with
glimmers of reason, which finally grew into a faint but steady
intelligence. And, very delicately, memory stirred in a slumbering
brain.

Reason and memory were mine again, frail toys for a stricken man, so
frail I dared not, for a time, use them for my amusement--and one of
them was broken, too--memory!--broken short at the moment when full in
my face I had felt the hot, fetid breath of a lion.

"Speed!"

"Yes; I am here."

"What time is it?"

I heard the click of his hunting-case. "Eleven o'clock."

"What day?"

"Saturday."

"When--" I hesitated. I was afraid.

"Well?" he asked, quietly.

"When was I hurt? Many days ago--many weeks?"

"You were hurt at half-past three this afternoon."

I tried to comprehend; I could not, and after a while I gave up my
feeble grasp on time.

"What is that roaring sound?" I asked. "Not drums? Not my lions?"

"It is the sea."

"So near?"

"Very near."

I turned my head on the white pillow. "Where is this bed? Where is
this room?"

"Shall I tell you?"

I was silent, struggling with memory.

"Tell me," I said. "Whose bed is this?"

"It is hers."

The candle-flame glimmered before my wide-open eyes once more, and--

"Oh, you are all right," he muttered, then leaned heavily against the
bedside, dropping his arms on the coverlet.

"It was a close call--a close call!" he said, hoarsely. "We thought
it was ended.... They were all over you--Empress dragged you; but they
all crowded in too close--they blocked each other, you see;... and we
used the irons.... Your left arm lay close to the cage door and ... we
got you away from them, and ... it's all right now--it's all right--"

He broke down, head buried in his arms. I moved my left hand across
the sheets so that it rested on his elbow. He lay there, gulping for a
while; I could not see him very clearly, for the muscles that
controlled my eyes were still slightly paralyzed from the shock of the
blow that Empress Khatoun had dealt me.

"It's all very well," he stammered, with a trace of resentment in his
quavering voice--"it's all very well for people who are used to the
filthy beasts; but I tell you, Scarlett, it sickened me. I'm no
coward, as men go, but I was afraid--I was terrified!"

"Yet you dragged me out," I said.

"Who tol