The goods, so needful to the sufferer, were all identified, and extracted at a great cost of patience, and the travellers were escorted, amid incomprehensible Arab clamours, across a _place_ ankle-deep in sand, to a one-storied building of such unburnt bricks as the Israelites might have made, covering a good deal of ground, and combining the caravanserai and the French hotel. A Greek landlord and his French wife came forth, and the one talking all languages, the other only her mother tongue, but both warmly welcoming the arrivals, and assuring them that _le pauvre Monsieur_ had had every care lavished on him--Dr. Chenu was there night and day.
A slender, moustached, brisk young man appeared, asking in French, in a kindly tone, whether they--especially Mademoiselle--could be prepared for so sad a sight as awaited them, but assuring them that the mere fact of life having so long continued had begun to inspire him with a sort of hope.
Mr. Harewood's French was not very available, but Wilmet made reply; and they were admitted into a low empty room, with windows shaded by screens of reed, through which came a dim light, showing a still figure, covered with light linen rags steeped in oil and spirit, which a little square figure in dark blue, with a neat net cap, was changing and renewing as fast as they dried.
All the preparation could not prevent the father from being overwhelmed, and having to turn away to grapple with the shock; but Wilmet, who had all along sustained herself with the recollection of John's reference to her awakening Lance from his deadly lethargy, without pause or shyness bent down, kissed his forehead, and called him by his name; and perhaps the full sense of his entire prostration only broke upon her when there was not the slightest token that she was heard, but the torpor continued unbroken by the faintest movement of the half-closed eyes or lips. Even then she only looked up with a piteous appealing glance to the doctor, who told her that the only chances of consciousness were in the intervals between the passing off of one anodyne and the administration of another, but that hitherto these had been spent in a sort of delirium of anguish, that made the renewal of the opiate immediately necessary.