one word--dreams, that is until at last I recovered my senses.

The dreams themselves are forgotten, which is perhaps as well, since
they were very confused, and for the most part awful; a hotch-potch of
nightmares, reflected without doubt from vivid memories of our recent
and fearsome sufferings. At times I would wake up from them a little,
I suppose when food was administered to me, and receive impressions
of whatever was passing in the place. Thus I can recollect that
yellow-faced old Guardian standing over me like a ghost in the
moonlight, stroking his long beard, his eyes fixed upon my face, as
though he would search out the secrets of my soul.

"They are the men," he muttered to himself, "without doubt they are the
men," then walked to the window and looked up long and earnestly, like
one who studies the stars.

After this I remember a disturbance in the room, and dominating it, as
it were, the rich sound of a woman's voice and the rustle of a woman's
silks sweeping the stone floor. I opened my eyes and saw that it was she
who had helped to rescue us, who _had_ rescued us in fact, a tall and
noble-looking lady with a beauteous, weary face and liquid eyes which
seemed to burn. From the heavy cloak she wore I thought that she must
have just returned from a journey.

She stood above me and looked at me, then turned away with a gesture
of indifference, if not of disgust, speaking to the Guardian in a low
voice. By way of answer he bowed, pointing to the other bed where Leo
lay, asleep, and thither she passed with slow, imperious movements. I
saw her bend down and lift the corner of a wrapping which covered his
wounded head, and heard her utter some smothered words before she turned
round to the Guardian as though to question him further.

But he had gone, and being alone, for she thought me senseless, she drew
a rough stool to the side of the bed, and seating herself studied Leo,
who lay thereon, with an earnestness that was almost terrible, for
her soul seemed to be concentrated in her eyes, and to find expression
through them. Long she gazed thus, then rose and began to walk swiftly
up and down the chamber, pressing her hands now to her bosom and now
to her brow, a certain passionate perplexity stamped upon her face, as
though she struggled to remember something and could not.

"Where and when?" she whispered. "Oh! where and when?"

Of the end of that scene I know nothing, for although I fought hard
against