CURARÉ

“Who’s there?” cried Alpheus Briggs, astonished and afraid. He faced toward the front hall. “What’s wanted?”

A tapping at his window-pane, with eager knuckles, drew his attention. He heard a woman’s voice—the voice of Laura Maynard:

“Here’s Hal! Let us in; quick, quick!”

“Hal?” cried the old man, turning very white. That evil had indeed come to him was certain now. He strode to his desk, dropped the revolver into the top drawer and closed it, then crossed over to the window and raised the shade. The face of Laura, with disheveled hair and fear-widened eyes, was peering in at him. Briggs flung the window up.

“Where is he, Laura? What’s happened? Who’s here with him?”

“Oh, I can’t tell you, captain!” she whispered. He saw her trembling; he noted those big, terror-stricken eyes, and thrilled with panic. From the front door sounded a confused bass murmur; and again the bell sounded. “Men from the store,” she gulped, “Jim Gordon and others. They’re—”

“They’re what, Laura? Bringing Hal back home?”

She nodded silently. He thought he had never seen a woman so pale.

“Captain, let them in!” she cried. “I’ve got to tell you. Hal—is injured. Open the door, quick! Get Dr. Filhiol!”

Everything else forgotten now, the captain turned, precipitated himself into the hall and snatched open the front door. Gusts of rain and wind tugged at him, flapping his bath robe. For a moment, not understanding anything, he stood peering out at what was all a blur of perfectly incomprehensible confusion. His fear-stricken eyes and brain failed to register any clear perception. A second or two, he neither heard nor saw. Then he became aware that some one—Jim Gordon, yes—was saying:

“We done the best we could, cap’n. Got him here as fast as we could. We’ll bring him right in.”

The captain saw something white out there on the dark, wet porch. In the midst of this whiteness a form was visible—and now the old man perceived a face; Hal’s face—and what, for God’s sake, was all this crimson stain?

He plunged forward, thrusting the men aside. A lantern swung, and he saw clearly.

“God above! They’ve—they’ve murdered him!”

“No, cap’n, he ain’t dead yit,” said some one, “but you’d better git him ’tended to, right snug off.”

Old Briggs was on his knees now gathering the lax figure to his arms.

“Hal! Hal!”

“Shhh!” exclaimed Gordon. “No use makin’ a touse, cap’n. He’s cut some, that’s a fact, but—”

“Who killed my boy?” cried the old man, terrible to look upon. “Who did this thing?”

“Captain Briggs,” said Laura tremulously, as she pulled at his sleeve, “you mustn’t waste a minute! Not a second! He’s got to be put right to bed. We’ve got to get a doctor now!”

“Here, cap’n, we’ll carry him in, fer ye,” spoke up Shorrocks. “Git up, cap’n, an’ we’ll lug him right in the front room.”

“Nobody shall carry my boy into this house but just his grandfather!” cried the captain in a loud, strange voice.

The old-time strength of Alpheus Briggs surged back. His arms, that felt no weakness now, gathered up Hal as in the old days they had caught him when a child. Into the house he bore him, with the others following; into the cabin, and so to the berth. The boy’s head, hanging limp, rested against the old man’s arm, tensed with supreme effort. The crimson stain from the grandson’s breast tinged the grandsire’s. Down in the berth the captain laid him, and, raising his head, entreated:

“Hal, boy! Speak to me—speak!”

Gordon laid a hand on his shoulder.

“It ain’t no use, cap’n,” said he. “He’s too fur gone.” With a muffled clumping of feet the others, dripping, awed, silent, trickled into the room. Laura had already run up-stairs, swift-footed, in quest of Dr. Filhiol. “It ain’t no use. Though mebbe if we was to git a little whisky into him—”

“Hal! Master Hal!” wailed a voice of agony. Old Ezra, ghastly and disheveled, appeared in the doorway. He would have run to the berth, but Shorrocks held him back.

“You can’t do no good, Ez!” he growled. “He’s gotta have air—don’t you go crowdin’ now!”

The shuffling of lame feet announced Dr. Filhiol. Laura, still in her drenched long coat, helped him move swiftly. Calkins shoved up a chair for him beside the berth, and the old doctor dropped into it.

“A light here!” commanded he, with sudden return of professional instinct and authority. Laura threw off her coat, seized the lamp from its swinging-ring over the desk, and held it close. Its shine revealed the pallor of her face, the great beauty of her eyes, the soul of her that seemed made visible in their compassionate depths, where dwelt an infinite forgiveness.

“You’ll have to stand back, captain,” ordered the doctor succinctly. “You’re only smothering him that way, holding him in your arms; and you must not kiss him! Lay him down—so! Ezra, stop that noise! Give me scissors or a knife, quick!”

Speaking, the doctor was already at work. With the sharp blade that Calkins passed him he cut away the blood-soaked bandage and threw it to the floor. His old hands did not tremble now; the call of duty had steeled his muscles with instinctive reactions. His eyes, narrowed behind their spectacles, made careful appraisal.

“Deep stab-wound,” said he. “How did he get this? Any one know anything about it?”

“He got it in the cabin of the Kittiwink,” answered Laura. “Everything was smashed up there. It looked to me as if Hal had fought three or four men.”

“McLaughlin’s!” cried the captain. His fists clenched passionately. “Oh, God! They’ve murdered my boy! Is he going to die, Filhiol? Is he?”

“That’s impossible to say. We’ll need plenty of hot water here, and soap and peroxide. Towels, lots of them! Ezra, you hear me? Get your local doctor at once. And have him bring his surgical kit as well as his medical. Tell him it’s a deep stab, with great loss of blood. Get a move on, somebody!”

Ezra, Gordon and Calkins departed. The front door slammed, feet ran across the porch, then down the steps and away.

“Everybody else go, too,” directed Filhiol. “We can’t have outsiders messing round here. Get out, all the rest of you—and mind now you don’t go making any loose talk about who did it!”

Silently the fishermen obeyed. A minute, and no one was left in the cabin save old Briggs, Filhiol and Laura, gathered beside the wounded, immobile figure in the berth.

“How long will it take to get your local doctor?” demanded Filhiol, inspecting the wound that still oozed bright, frothy blood, showing the lung to be involved in the injury.

“Ten minutes, perhaps,” said Laura.

“H-m! There’s no time to lose here.”

“Is he going to die?” asked the old captain, his voice now firm. He had grown calm again; only his lips were very tight, and under the lamp-glow his forehead gleamed with myriad tiny drops. “Is this boy of mine going to die?”

“How can I tell? Why ask?”

“If he does, I won’t survive him! That’s the simple truth.”

“H-m!” grunted Filhiol, once more. He cast an oblique glance at the captain. And in that second he realized that the thought, which had been germinating in his brain, could lead him nowhere; the thought that now his wish had really come to pass—that Hal was really now his patient, as he had wished the boy might be. He knew, now, that even though he could so far forget his ethics as to fail in his whole duty toward Hal Briggs, the captain held an unconscious whip-hand over him. Just those few simple words, spoken from the soul—”I won’t survive him”—had closed the doors of possibility for a great crime.

Ezra came in with a steaming basin, with soap and many towels.

“Put those on this chair here,” commanded Filhiol. “And then either keep perfectly quiet, or get out and stay out!”

Cowed, the old man tremblingly obliterated himself in the shadow behind the desk. The doctor began a little superficial cleaning up of his patient. Hal had still shown no signs of consciousness, nor had he opened his eyes. Yet the fact was, he remained entirely conscious. Everything that was said he heard and understood. But the paralysis gripping him had made of him a thing wherein no slightest power lay to indicate his thought, or understanding. Alive, yet dead, he lay there, much as the amok Malay of fifty years before had lain upon the deck of the Silver Fleece. And all his vital forces now had narrowed to just one effort—to keep heart and lungs in laboring action.

Little by little the invading poison was attacking even this last citadel of his life. Little by little, heart and lungs were failing, as the curarÉ fingered its way into the last, inner nerve-centers. But still life fought. And as the doctor bent above Hal, washing away the blood from lips and throat and chest, a half-instinctive analysis of the situation forced itself upon him. This wound, these symptoms—well, what other diagnosis would apply?

“There’s something more at work here,” thought he, “than just loss of blood. This man could stand a deal of that and still not be in any such collapse. There’s poison of some kind at work. And if this wound isn’t the cut of a kris, I never saw one!”

He raised one eyelid, and peered at the pupil. Then he closed the eye again.

“By the Almighty!” he whispered.

“What is it, doctor?” demanded the captain. “Don’t keep anything from me!”

“I hate to tell you!”

The old man caught his breath, but never flinched.

“Tell me!” he commanded. Laura peered in silence, very white. “I can stand it. Tell me all there is to tell!”

“Well, captain, from what I find here—there can be no doubt—”

“No doubt of what?”

“The blade that stabbed Hal was—”

“That poisoned kris?”

Filhiol nodded silently.

“God above! The curse—retribution!”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, captain, drop all that nonsense!” flared out the doctor from taut nerves. “This is no time for your infernal superstitions! We’ve got all we can handle without cluttering things up with a mess of rubbish. We’ve got a long, hard fight on our hands.”

“I know. But you can save him, doctor! You must!”

“I’ll do all in human power. This wound here I’m not in a position to deal with. Your local doctor can attend to that. It isn’t the vital feature of this case. The poison is!”

“You’ve got a remedy for that, haven’t you? You said you had!”

“Do you realize it’s been an hour, perhaps, since this wound was made? If the curarÉ had been fresh and new—” He finished with an expressive gesture. “It’s old and dried, and some of it must have been worn off the blade. Perhaps, not a great deal got into the cut. There’s a chance, a fighting chance—perhaps.”

“Then the remedy! Quick, doctor! Get it, make it!”

“I’ve got to wait till the physician comes. I’ve got no drugs with me.”

“Will he have the right ones?”

“They’re common enough. It all depends on the formula, the exact mixture.”

“You remember them?”

“Maybe I can, if you don’t disturb my mind too much.”

“I’ll be quiet, doctor. You just order me, and I’ll do anything you say,” the old man promised abjectly. His eyes were cavernous with suffering. “Lord God! why don’t Dr. Marsh come?”

“Hal here is suffering from a general paralysis,” said Filhiol. “This curarÉ is peculiar stuff.” He laid his ear to Hal’s chest, listened a moment, then raised his head. “There’s some heart-action yet,” said he. “Our problem is to keep it going, and the respiration, till the effects pass. It’s quite possible Hal isn’t unconscious. He may know what’s going on. With this poison the victim feels and knows and understands, and yet can’t move hand or foot. In fact, he’s reduced to complete helplessness.”

“And yet you call me superstitious when I talk retribution!” the captain whispered tensely. “I lived by force in the old days. He, poor boy, put all his faith and trust in it; he made it his God, and worshipped it. And now—he’s struck down, helpless—”

“It is strange,” Filhiol had to admit. “I don’t believe in anything like that. But certainly this is very, very strange. Yes, your grandson is more helpless now than any child. Even if he lives, he’ll be helpless for a long time, and very weak for months and months. This kind of curarÉ used by the upper Malay people is the most diabolical stuff ever concocted. Its effects are swift and far-reaching; they last a long, long time, in case they don’t kill at once. Hal can never be the same man he used to be, captain. You’ve got to make up your mind to that, anyhow.”

“Thank the Lord for it!” the old man fervently ejaculated. “Thank the good Lord above!”

“If he lives, he may sometime get back a fair amount of strength. He may be as well as an average man, but the days of his unbridled power and his terrific force are all over. His fighting heart and arrogant soul are gone, never to return.”

“God is being very good to me!” cried Briggs, tears starting down his wrinkled cheeks.

“Amen to that!” said Laura. “I don’t care what he’ll be, doctor. Only give him back to me!”

“He’ll be an invalid a very long time, girl.”

“And all that time I can nurse him and love him back to health!”

Footsteps suddenly clattered on the porch. The front door flung open.

“Laura! Are you all right? Are you safe?” cried a new voice.

“There’s my father!” exclaimed the girl. “And there’s Dr. Marsh, with him!”

Into the cabin penetrated two men. Nathaniel Maynard—thin, gray, wiry—stood staring. The physician, brisk and competent, set his bag on a chair and peeled off his coat, dripping rain.

“Laura! Tell me—”

“Not now, father! Shhh! I’m all right, every way. But Hal here—”

“We won’t have any unnecessary conversation, Mr. Maynard,” directed Dr. Marsh. He approached the berth. “What is this, now? Stab-wound? Ah, yes. Well, I’ll wash right up and get to work.”

“Do, please,” answered Filhiol. “You can handle it alone, all right. I’ve got a job of my own. There’s poisoning present, too. CurarÉ.”

“CurarÉ!” exclaimed Marsh, amazed. “That’s most unusual! Are you sure?”

“I didn’t serve on ships in the Orient, for nothing,” answered Filhiol with asperity. “My diagnosis is absolute. There was dried curarÉ on the blade that stabbed this man. It’s a very complex poison—either C₁₈H₃₅N, or C₁₀H₃₅N. Only one man, Sir Robert Schomburg, ever found out how the natives make it, and only one man—myself—ever learned the secret of the antidote.”

“So, so?” commented Marsh, rolling up his shirt-sleeve. He set out antiseptics, dressings, pads, drainage, and proceeded to scrub up. “We can’t do this work here in the berth. Clear the desk, Ezra,” he directed. “It’s long enough for an operating-table. Make up a bed there—a few blankets and a clean sheet. Then we can lift him over. We’ll strip his chest as he lies—cut the clothes off. Lively, every one! CurarÉ, eh? I never came in contact with it, Dr. Filhiol. I’m not above asking its physiological effects.”

“It’s unique,” answered Filhiol. He got up from beside the wounded man and approached the chair on which stood the doctor’s bag. “It produces a type of pure motor-paralysis, acting on the end plates of the muscles and the peripheral end-organs of the motor-nerves. First it attacks the voluntary muscles, and then those of respiration. It doesn’t cause unconsciousness, however. The patient here may know all that’s going on, but he can’t make a sign. Don’t trust to this apparent unconsciousness in exploring the wound. Give plenty of anesthetic, just as if he seemed fully conscious.”

“Glad you told me that,” said Marsh, nodding. “How about stimulants, or even a little nitroglycerine for the heart?”

“Useless. There’s just one remedy.”

“And you’ve got it?”

“I can compound it, I think. It’s a secret, given me fifty years ago by a Parsee in Bombay. He’d have lost his life for having given it, if it had been known. Let me have some of your drugs, will you?”

“Help yourself,” answered Marsh, drying his hands.

While Laura and the captain watched in silence, Filhiol opened the bag, and after some deliberation chose three vials.

“All right,” said he. “Now you to your work, and I to mine!”

“Got everything you need?”

“I’ll want a hypodermic when I come back—if I succeed in compounding the formula.”

“How long will you be?”

“If I’m very long—” His look finished the phrase. Laura came close to Filhiol.

“Doctor,” she whispered, her face tense with terrible earnestness. “You must remember the formula. You can’t fail! There’s more than Hal’s life at stake, now. The captain—you’ve got to save him!”

“And you, too! Your happiness—that is to say, your life!” the old man answered, laying a hand on hers. “I understand it all, dear. All, perfectly. I needn’t tell you more than that!”

He turned toward the door.

“Captain Briggs, sir,” said he, “I was with you in the old days, and I’m with you now—all the way through. Courage, and don’t give up the ship!”