“I’ve got to hurt you,” she said resolutely, pulling with nervous strength.

“It’s most awfully good of you,” murmured Percival, wearily, setting his teeth and closing his eyes.  Despite the pain, the drowsiness was getting the better of him.  He felt himself sinking through space, away from the world, from himself, and, worst of all, from the tender, reassuring voice that kept whispering words of comfort in his ear.

From time to time he was aware of bellboys coming and going, and of apparently futile inquiries for Judson, for the doctor, for Mrs. Weston, for the captain.  Then for a long time he was aware of nothing whatever.

A sudden sharp pain in his arm roused him, and he opened his eyes.  Bobby still knelt on the floor beside him, unflinchingly holding the strap in place.

“I won’t have this!” he cried, struggling to sit up.  “Your lips are trembling.  It’s making you ill.”

She laid her free hand on his shoulder.

“Please lie still!  They’ll be here in a minute.  I thought I heard the elevator.  It won’t be much longer.”

There was the sound of hurrying feet in the hall, and the next instant a quick rap at the door.  Bobby looked up with great relief as a burly English physician bustled into the room.

“How long have you had the tourniquet on, Madam?” he asked, stripping off his gloves and falling to work.

“The what?” said Bobby.

“The strap on his arm?”

“Oh, since a quarter past twelve.”  She got up from her knees stiffly, and shook out the shining folds of the Manchu coat.  “It was the only thing I could think of; it’s what the boys do back home for a rattlesnake bite.”

The doctor’s glance expressed complete and unqualified approval, but whether it was for her course of action or her very lovely and disturbed appearance it would be hard to say.  As she slipped out of the room he turned to Percival.

“It’s a severed artery, sir; no special harm done except the loss of blood.  A few days’ rest—­”

“But I am sailing in the morning,” murmured Percival.  “Must patch me up by that time.”

“We shall see.  You don’t seem to realize that you stood an excellent chance of remaining permanently in Shanghai.”

“You mean?”

“I mean that you owe your life to that plucky little wife of yours.”

Percival’s heart leaped at the word.  “She’s not my wife, Doctor,” he said, smiling feebly, “not yet.”

XIV

NEPTUNE TAKES A HAND

The evolution of a hero is seldom a gradual process; he usually springs into public favor suddenly and dramatically.  Not so with the Honorable Percival.  He had to scramble ignominiously on all fours through a canvas tunnel, he had to brave the smiles of the on-lookers while he learned new steps on the ball-room floor, he had to participate in a street fight and have an artery severed before he was accorded the honor of a pedestal.