“A man!” exclaimed Unorna.

“Of course.  An animal would not do, because you could not produce the lethargy nor make use of suggestion for healing purposes—­”

“But it would kill him!”

“Not at all, as I would do it, especially if the young man were very strong and full of life.  When the result is obtained, an antiseptic ligature, suggestion of complete healing during sleep, proper nourishment, such as we are giving at present, by recalling the patient to the hypnotic state, sleep again, and so on; in eight and forty hours your young man would be waked and would never know what had happened to him—­unless he felt a little older, by nervous sympathy,” added the sage with a low laugh.

“Are you perfectly sure of what you say?” asked Unorna eagerly.

“Absolutely.  I have examined the question for years.  There can be no doubt of it.  Food can maintain life, blood alone can renew it.”

“Have you everything you need here?” inquired Unorna.

“Everything.  There is no hospital in Europe that has the appliances we have prepared for every emergency.”

He looked at her face curiously.  It was ghastly pale with excitement.  The pupil of her brown eye was so widely expanded that the iris looked black, while the aperture of the gray one was contracted to the size of a pin’s head, so that the effect was almost that of a white and sightless ball.

“You seem interested,” said the gnome.

“Would such a man—­such a man as Israel Kafka answer the purpose?” she asked.

“Admirably,” replied the other, beginning to understand.

“Keyork Arabian,” whispered Unorna, coming close to him and bending down to his ear, “Israel Kafka is alone under the palm tree where I always sit.  He is asleep, and he will not wake.”

The gnome looked up and nodded gravely.  But she was gone almost before she had finished speaking the words.

“As upon an instrument,” said the little man, quoting Unorna’s angry speech.  “Truly I can play upon you, but it is a strange music.”

Half an hour later Unorna returned to her place among the flowers, but Israel Kafka was gone.

CHAPTER VII

The Wanderer, when Keyork Arabian had left him, had intended to revisit Unorna without delay, but he had not proceeded far in the direction of her house when he turned out of his way and entered a deserted street which led towards the river.  He walked slowly, drawing his furs closely about him, for it was very cold.

He found himself in one of those moments of life in which the presentiment of evil almost paralyses the mind’s power of making any decision.  In general, a presentiment is but the result upon the consciousness of conscious or unconscious fear.  This fear is very often the natural consequence of the reaction which, in melancholy natures, comes almost inevitably after a sudden and unexpected satisfaction