The stranger must have seen what was passing through my mind,—not a very difficult thing to see. Pointing to the recumbent Percy, he said, with that queer foreign twang of his, which, whatever it had seemed like in the morning, sounded musical enough just then.
‘All will be well with him.’
‘I am not so sure.’
The stranger did not deign to answer. He was kneeling on one side of the victim of modern science, I on the other. Passing his hand to and fro in front of the unconscious countenance, as if by magic all semblance of discomfort vanished from Percy’s features, and, to all appearances, he was placidly asleep.
‘Have you hypnotised him?’
‘What does it matter?’
If it was a case of hypnotism, it was very neatly done. The conditions were both unusual and trying, the effect produced seem
