“Are you glad, O Child of Kings?” I asked.

“Of course,” she answered, “seeing that I am told that this captain alone can handle the firestuffs which you have brought with you, and, therefore, that it is necessary to me that he should not die.”

“I understand,” I replied.  “Let us pray that we may keep him alive.  But there are many kinds of firestuffs, O Maqueda, and of one of them which chances to give out violet flames I am not sure that my friend is master.  Yet in this country it may be the most dangerous of all.”

Now when she heard these words the Child of Kings looked me up and down angrily.  Then suddenly she laughed a little in a kind of silent way that is peculiar to her, and, without saying anything, beckoned to her ladies and left the place.

“Very variegated thing, woman, sir,” remarked Quick, who was watching.  (I think he meant to say “variable.”) “This one, for instance, comes up that passage like a tired horse—­shuffle, shuffle, shuffle—­for I could hear the heels of her slippers on the floor.  But now she goes out like a buck seeking its mate—­head in air and hoof lifted.  How do you explain it, Doctor?”

“You had better ask the lady herself, Quick.  Did the Captain take that soup she brought him?”

“Every drop, sir, and tried to kiss her hand afterward, being still dazed, poor man, poor man!  I saw him do it, knowing no better.  He’ll be sorry enough when he comes to himself.”

“No doubt, Sergeant.  But meanwhile let us be glad that both their spirits seem to have improved, and if she brings any more soup when I am not there, I should let him have it.  It is always well to humour invalids and women.”

“Yes, Doctor; but,” he added, with a sudden fall of face, “invalids recover sometimes, and then how about the women.”

“Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof,” I answered; “you had better go out for exercise; it is my watch.”  But to myself I thought that Fate was already throwing its ominous shadow before, and that it lay deep in Maqueda’s violet eyes.

Well, to cut a long story short, this was the turning-point of Orme’s illness, and from that day he recovered rapidly, for, as it proved, there was no secret injury to the skull, and he was suffering from nothing except shock and fever.  During his convalescence the Child of Kings came to see him several times, or to be accurate, if my memory serves me right, every afternoon.  Of course, her visits were those of ceremony—­that is to say, she was always accompanied by several of her ladies, that thorn in my flesh, the old doctor, and one or two secretaries and officers-in-waiting.

But as Oliver was now moved by day into a huge reception room, and these people of the court were expected to stop at one end of it while she conversed with him at the other, to all intents and purposes, save for the presence of myself and Quick, her calls were of a private nature.  Nor were we always present, since, now that my patient was out of danger the Sergeant and I went out riding a good deal—­investigating Mur and its surroundings.