Chapter XLIII

He came to in a narrow iron bed, weak, nauseated, and handcuffed. He could rub his feet together, but he could not separate them. He had been dreaming about Barbara--horrible dreams. His first conscious thought was that she, too, was a prisoner in the house of Blizzard, and that somehow or other he must save her. Having tried in vain to break the bright, delicate-looking handcuffs, he tried in vain to think calmly. Hours passed. Nobody came. He worked himself gradually into a fever of impotent rage. Civilization slipped away from him. He was ready, if necessary, to fight with his teeth, to gouge eyes, to inflict any barbarous atrocity upon his enemy.

Gradually, for the air in the room was fresh, the feeling of sickness passed away, and was succeeded by weakness and lassitude. As a matter of fact, being a strong man, in splendid health, he was faint from hunger. But he did not know this.

An elderly woman came softly into the room. She wore a blue dress, a white apron, a white kerchief, white cuffs, a white cap. Her face was disfigured by a great brown protruding mole from which a tuft of hair sprouted; she had an expression of methodical kindness, but small shifting eyes in which was no honesty.

She carried a cup that smoked. She put the cup on a table, lifted Wilmot to a sitting position, as if he had been a child, and asked him if he was hungry.

For a moment he did not answer; he was getting used to the discovery that he had been undressed and was wearing a linen night-gown. Then he nodded toward the smoking cup.

"How do I know it isn't poisoned?"

"Come--come," said the woman, "you'd have gone out under the chloroform if that had been the intention. Better keep your strength up."

After a few spoonfuls of the soup, Wilmot suggested that he should prefer something solid.

The woman shook her head.

"If I'm to be kept alive," he said petulantly, "why not comfortably?"

"Nothing solid. That's the doctor's orders."

"Blizzard's?"

"No. The doctor."

"What doctor?"

"Why, Dr. Ferris."

"Where is he? I want to speak to him."

"He isn't here. He's coming when everything's ready."

"Everything ready?" A nameless fear began to gnaw at Wilmot's vitals. And at that moment the door swung open, and he saw, beyond the bulking head and shoulders of the legless man, a narrow iron table, white and shining, in a room all glass and white paint.

On the entrance of Blizzard, the woman took up the remains of the soup, and passed noiselessly out of the room.

Blizzard climbed to the foot of Wilmot's bed, and sat looking at him. In his eyes there was a glitter of suppressed excitement. "When our last talk was interrupted," he said, "I had just told you that Miss Ferris is a prisoner in this house. You don't like the idea?"

Wilmot shuddered and made a convulsive effort to break the handcuffs. He struggled with them in desperate silence for nearly a minute.

"I might break them," said Blizzard, "but you can't. Try to be as reasonable as you can. Miss Ferris is in no immediate danger. I am going to let her go, if you and I can agree."

"What do you want _me_ to agree to?"

"I've had it in mind for a long time. It was why I relieved you of money cares, and sent you West. I wished to put you in a state of perfect health before trying an experiment of the utmost interest and value to science. Only your consent is now wanting. Upon that consent depends Miss Ferris's fate. Refuse and I leave your lover heart to imagine what that fate may be. She is absolutely in my power--absolutely. Do you know her writing?"

He smiled a little and held before Wilmot's eyes a sheet of note-paper.

"She has just written it," he said, "of her own free will."

Wilmot read: "I will marry you, as soon as I know that Wilmot Allen is out of your power and safe in life and limb."

A sort of ecstasy, half anguish and half delight, thrilled through Wilmot. The writing was unmistakably Barbara's--and she was ready to make that sacrifice for him!

"She sha'n't do that," he said, "so help me God. What must I do--to save her?"

"Young man," said the legless man, "you must give me your legs."

Wilmot was at first bewildered.

"My legs?"

"They are to be grafted on my poor old stumps," said Blizzard. "You won't die. You'll just be as I am now. And I--I," his eyes shone with an unholy light, "shall be as you are now--a biped--a real man--a giant of a man. You are going to consent?"

"How do I know that you will let Miss Ferris go?"

"You shall have news of her freedom and safety in her own writing."

"When I have that assurance," said Wilmot, "I will consent to anything. Any decent man would give his life for a woman--why not his legs? Is Dr. Ferris to operate?"

"He will be the chief of three surgeons."

"But he won't cut off my legs. We're old friends. He--"

"Won't know you in that beard. I have told him that you are a murderer whom I have saved from the chair. That in gratitude for this and for the further services of smuggling you out of the country and giving you a large sum of money--not forgetting the crying interests of science--you have consented to give me your legs. He will ask you if you consent to have your legs cut off, and you will nod your head without speaking--then when my old stumps have been prepared--you will be put under an anaesthetic--"

"First I must know that Miss Ferris is safe."

"Give me your word of honor that when you _know_ that she is--you will consent."

"I don't know what you have to do with honor," said Wilmot, "but I give my word."

"Then," said Blizzard, sliding to the floor, "I go to set Miss Ferris free."