All was confusion in an instant.  Everybody crowded to the stage; whilst I, with a presence of mind which afterwards surprised myself, made my way out by a side-door and ran to fetch my father.  He was fortunately at home, and in less than ten minutes the Chevalier was under his care.  We found him laid upon a sofa in one of the sitting-rooms of the inn, pale, rigid, insensible, and surrounded by an idle crowd of lookers-on.  They had taken off his cap and beard, and the landlady was endeavoring to pour some brandy down his throat; but his teeth were fast set, and his lips were blue and cold.

“Oh, Doctor Arbuthnot!  Doctor Arbuthnot!” cried a dozen voices at once, “the Conjuror is dying!”

“For which reason, I suppose, you are all trying to smother him!” said my father angrily.  “Mistress Cobbe, I beg you will not trouble yourself to pour that brandy down the man’s throat.  He has no more power to swallow it than my stick.  Basil, open the window, and help me to loosen these things about his throat.  Good people, all, I must request you to leave the room.  This man’s life is in peril, and I can do nothing while you remain.  Go home—­go home.  You will see no more conjuring to-night.”

My father was peremptory, and the crowd unwillingly dispersed.  One by one they left the room and gathered discontentedly in the passage.  When it came to the last two or three, he took them by the shoulders, closed the door upon them, and turned the key.

Only the landlady, and elderly woman-servant, and myself remained.

The first thing my father did was to examine the pupil of the patient’s eye, and lay his hand upon his heart.  It still fluttered feebly, but the action of the lungs was suspended, and his hands and feet were cold as death.

My father shook his head.

“This man must be bled,” said he, “but I have little hope of saving him.”

He was bled, and, though still unconscious, became less rigid They then poured a little wine down his throat, and he fell into a passive but painless condition, more inanimate than sleep, but less positive than a state of trance.

A fire was then lighted, a mattress brought down, and the patient laid upon it, wrapped in many blankets.  My father announced his intention of sitting up with him all night.  In vain I begged for leave to share his vigil.  He would hear of no such thing, but turned me out as he had turned out the others, bade me a brief “Good-night,” and desired me to run home as quickly as I could.

At that stage of my history, to hear was to obey; so I took my way quietly through the bar of the hotel, and had just reached the door when a touch on my sleeve arrested me.  It was Mr. Cobbe, the landlord—­a portly, red-whiskered Boniface of the old English type.

“Good-evening, Mr. Basil,” said he.  “Going home, sir?”

“Yes, Mr. Cobbe,” I replied.  “I can be of no further use here.”