II

“Feeling better now?”

I looked up.  Joseph Tress was speaking.

“What’s the matter?  Have I been ill?”

“You appear to have been in some kind of swoon.”

Tress’s tone was peculiar, even a little dry.

“Swoon!  I never was guilty of such a thing in my life.”

“Nor was I, until I smoked that pipe.”

I sat up.  The act of sitting up made me conscious of the fact that I had been lying down.  Conscious, too, that I was feeling more than a little dazed.  It seemed as though I was waking out of some strange, lethargic sleep—­a kind of feeling which I have read of and heard about, but never before experienced.

“Where am I?”

“You’re on the couch in your own room.  You were on the floor; but I thought it would be better to pick you up and place you on the couch—­though no one performed the same kind office to me when I was on the floor.”

Again Tress’s tone was distinctly dry.

“How came you here?”

“Ah, that’s the question.”  He rubbed his chin—­a habit of his which has annoyed me more than once before.  “Do you think you’re sufficiently recovered to enable you to understand a little simple explanation?” I stared at him, amazed.  He went on stroking his chin.  “The truth is that when I sent you the pipe I made a slight omission.”

“An omission?”

“I omitted to advise you not to smoke it.”

“And why?”

“Because—­well, I’ve reason to believe the thing is drugged.”

“Drugged!”

“Or poisoned.”

“Poisoned!” I was wide awake enough then.  I jumped off the couch with a celerity which proved it.

“It is this way.  I became its owner in rather a singular manner.”  He paused, as if for me to make a remark; but I was silent.  “It is not often that I smoke a specimen, but, for some reason, I did smoke this.  I commenced to smoke it, that is.  How long I continued to smoke it is more than I can say.  It had on me the same peculiar effect which it appears to have had on you.  When I recovered consciousness I was lying on the floor.”

“On the floor?”

“On the floor.  In about as uncomfortable a position as you can easily conceive.  I was lying face downward, with my legs bent under me.  I was never so surprised in my life as I was when I found myself where I was.  At first I supposed that I had had a stroke.  But by degrees it dawned upon me that I didn’t feel as though I had had a stroke.”  Tress, by the way, has been an army surgeon.  “I was conscious of distinct nausea.  Looking about, I saw the pipe.  With me it had fallen on to the floor.  I took it for granted, considering the delicacy of the carving, that the fall had broken it.  But when I picked it up I found it quite uninjured.  While I was examining it a thought flashed to my brain.  Might it not be answerable for what had happened to me?  Suppose, for instance, it was drugged?  I had heard of such things.  Besides, in my case were present all the symptoms of drug poisoning, though what drug had been used I couldn’t in the least conceive.  I resolved that I would give the pipe another trial.”