CHAPTER II
THE MAN WITH THE LIMP
"Lock the door!" said Smith significantly, as we stepped into thecorridor.
I did so and had turned to join my friend when, to the accompanimentof a sort of hysterical muttering, a door further along, and on theopposite side of the corridor, was suddenly thrown open, and a manwhose face showed ghastly white in the light of the solitary lampbeyond, literally hurled himself out. He perceived Smith and myselfimmediately. Throwing one glance back over his shoulder he cametottering forward to meet us.
"My God! I can't stand it any longer!" he babbled, and threw himselfupon Smith, who was foremost, clutching pitifully at him for support."Come and see him, sir--for Heaven's sake come in! I think he's dying;and he's going mad. I never disobeyed an order in my life before, butI can't help myself--I can't help myself!"
"Brace up!" I cried, seizing him by the shoulders as, still clutchingat Nayland Smith, he turned his ghastly face to me. "Who are you, andwhat's your trouble?"
"I'm Beeton, Sir Gregory Hale's man."
Smith started visibly, and his gaunt, tanned face seemed to me to havegrown perceptively paler.
"Come on, Petrie!" he snapped. "There's some devilry here."
Thrusting Beeton aside he rushed in at the open door--upon which, as Ifollowed him, I had time to note the number, 14a. It communicated witha suite of rooms almost identical with our own. The sitting-room wasempty and in the utmost disorder, but from the direction of theprincipal bedroom came a most horrible mumbling and gurgling sound--asound utterly indescribable. For one instant we hesitated at thethreshold--hesitated to face the horror beyond; then almost side byside we came into the bedroom....
Only one of the two lamps was alight--that above the bed; and on thebed a man lay writhing. He was incredibly gaunt, so that the suit oftropical twill which he wore hung upon him in folds, showing if suchevidence were necessary, how terribly he was fallen away from hisconstitutional habit. He wore a beard of at least ten days' growth,which served to accentuate the cavitous hollowness of his face. Hiseyes seemed starting from their sockets as he lay upon his backuttering inarticulate sounds and plucking with skinny fingers at hislips.
Smith bent forward peering into the wasted face; and then started backwith a suppressed cry.
"Merciful God! can it be Hale?" he muttered. "What does it mean? whatdoes it mean?"
I ran to the opposite side of the bed, and placing my arms under thewrithing man, raised him and propped a pillow at his back. Hecontinued to babble, rolling his eyes from side to side hideously;then by degrees they seemed to become less glazed, and a light ofreturning sanity entered them. They became fixed; and they were fixedupon Nayland Smith, who bending over the bed, was watching Sir Gregory(for Sir Gregory I concluded this pitiable wreck to be) with anexpression upon his face compound of many emotions.
"A glass of water," I said, catching the glance of the man Beeton,who stood trembling at the open doorway.
Spilling a liberal quantity upon the carpet, Beeton ultimatelysucceeded in conveying the glass to me. Hale, never taking his gazefrom Smith, gulped a little of the water and then thrust my hand away.As I turned to place the tumbler upon a small table the resumed thewordless babbling, and now, with his index finger, pointed to hismouth.
"He has lost the power of speech!" whispered Smith.
"He was stricken dumb, gentlemen, ten minutes ago," said Beeton in atrembling voice. "He dropped off to sleep out there on the floor, andI brought him in here and laid him on the bed. When he woke up he waslike that!"
The man on the bed ceased his inchoate babbling and now, gulpingnoisily, began to make quick nervous movements with his hands.
"He wants to write something," said Smith in a low voice. "Quick! holdhim up!" He thrust his notebook, open at a blank page, before the manwhose movement were numbered, and placed a pencil in the shakingright hand.
Faintly and unevenly Sir Gregory commenced to write--whilst Isupported him. Across the bent shoulders Smith silently questioned me,and my reply was a negative shake of the head.
The lamp above the bed was swaying as if in a heavy draught; Iremembered that it had been swaying as we entered. There was no fog inthe room, but already from the bleak corridor outside it was entering;murky, yellow clouds steaming in at the open door. Save for the gulpingof the dying man, and the sobbing breaths of Beeton, there was nosound. Six irregular lines Sir Gregory Hale scrawled upon the page;then suddenly his body became a dead weight in my arms. Gently I laidhim back upon the pillows, gently his finger from the notebook, and,my head almost touching Smith's as we both craned forward over thepage, read, with great difficulty, the following:--
"Guard my diary.... Tibetan frontier ... Key of India. Beware man ... with the limp. Yellow ... rising. Watch Tibet ... the _Si-Fan_...."
From somewhere outside the room, whether above or below I could not besure, came a faint, dragging sound, accompanied by a _tap--tap--tap_....