Prokop looked up and saw the Princess bending over him with closed lips and burning eyes. “Beast!” he grunted with dull contempt and quickly closed his eyes again. His heart beat wildly and rapidly. His eyes were stung with sweat and he felt a salty taste in his mouth. His tongue was stuck to his palate and in his throat was a blind, dry thirst. “Do you want anything?” asked the Princess, very close to him. He shook his head. She thought that he was again sleeping, but after a while he said hoarsely: “Where’s that parcel?”
She thought that he was delirious and did not answer. “Where’s that parcel?” he repeated, knitting his brows authoritatively. “Here, here,” she said quickly, and thrust between his fingers a piece of paper which she happened to have in her hand. He quickly crumpled it into a ball, and threw it away.
“That’s not it. I—I want my parcel. I—I want my parcel.”
As he continued to repeat these words and began to rage, she sent for Paul. Paul remembered having seen somewhere a dirty parcel tied up with string, but where was it? They found it in a cupboard; there you are! Prokop clasped it in both hands and held it to his breast. Appeased, he fell into a deep sleep. Three hours later he again began to sweat profusely; he was so weak that he scarcely breathed. The Princess at once sent for the doctors. His temperature fell lower and lower and his pulse almost stopped. They wanted to give him a camphor injection at once, but the local doctor, who felt very shy and provincial amongst such mandarins, was of the opinion that if they did the patient would never wake up. “At any rate he would pass out in his sleep, eh?” said the famous specialist.
“You are right.”
The Princess, completely exhausted, went to lie down for an hour on being told that nothing more could be done. Dr. Krafft remained with the patient, having promised her that he would let her know the position in an hour’s time. He sent no message and the agitated Princess came to see for herself. She found Krafft standing in the middle of the room waving his arms and talking at the top of his voice about telepathy, quoting Richet, James and somebody else, while Prokop was listening to him with clear eyes, now and then interposing the objections of a scientific and limited sceptic. “I’ve resurrected him, Princess,” shouted Krafft, forgetting everything, “I concentrated my mind on the fact of his recovery; I—I made passes over him with my hands, see? Radiation of ods. But that sort of thing exhausts one! I feel as weak as a fly,” he announced, and thereupon emptied a full glass of the benzine which was kept for washing bandages, evidently taking it for wine, so excited was he by his success. “Tell me,” he shouted, “have I made you well or not?”
“You have,” said Prokop with friendly irony.
Dr. Krafft collapsed into an armchair. “I myself did not realize that I have such a powerful aura,” he said contentedly. “Shall I pass my hands over you again?”
The Princess looked from one to another of them in consternation. Then she smiled and suddenly her eyes filled with tears. She stroked Krafft’s ruddy hair and ran out of the room.
“Women can’t stand anything,” said Krafft proudly; “you see, I’m absolutely calm. I felt a fluid oozing out of my fingertips. It could certainly have been photographed. A sort of ultra-radiation.”
The specialists returned, sent Krafft out of the room in spite of his protests and again took Prokop’s temperature, felt his pulse and all the rest of it. His temperature was higher, his pulse ninety-six, and he had developed some sort of an appetite. After this the mandarins retired to the other wing of the castle where their services were needed, for the Princess was in a fever, and had completely collapsed after sixty hours of watching by Prokop’s bedside. In addition she was extremely anaemic and ill in several other ways.
The next day Prokop was already sitting up in bed and receiving visits. Almost all the company had already left; only the fat cousin remained alone in boredom. Carson arrived rather agitated, but the meeting turned out all right. Prokop made no allusion to what had passed, and finally Carson announced that the terrible explosives that Prokop had invented during the last few days had shown themselves to be as dangerous as sawdust. In short Prokop must have already been feverish when he prepared them. The patient accepted this information quite calmly and smiled, in fact, for the first time. “Well,” he said affably, “all the same I frightened you all pretty thoroughly.”
“You did,” admitted Carson willingly. “I’ve never been so frightened about myself and the factory before.”
Krafft dragged himself into the room pale and exhausted. He had spent the night celebrating his possession of a miraculous gift by drinking large quantities of wine and now he felt utterly miserable. He lamented the fact that his power had left him forever and announced that he had decided for the future to devote himself to yoga.
Uncle Charles also arrived, very friendly and subtly reserved. Prokop appreciated the fact that he had fallen back into the style of a month before, again addressing him in the plural. Only when the conversation turned on the Princess did the atmosphere become a little strained.
Meanwhile, in the other wing of the castle, the Princess was coughing painfully and receiving a report from Paul every half-hour as to what Prokop was eating, saying and doing.
He again became feverish and his terrible dreams returned. He saw in front of him a dark shed containing an endless row of casks of Krakatit. In front of the shed an armed soldier was marching to and fro, to and fro; nothing more, but it was terrible. It seemed to him that he was again in the war; before his eyes there stretched
