I lay still for a minute, thinking.  Ah, yes!  It came back.  Watson—­Chick Watson!  The Blind Spot!  The Rhamda and the bell!

Surely it was a dream.  How could all this be in one short night?  It was like a nightmare and impossible.  I raised up on my elbow and looked at the form beside me.  It was Hobart Fenton.  He was unconscious.

For a moment my mind was whirring; I was too weak and unsteady.  I dropped back and wondered absently at the roses.  Roses meant perfume, and perfume meant a woman.  What could—­something touched my face—­something soft; it plucked tenderly at my tangled hair and drew it away from my forehead.  It was the hand of a woman!

“You poor, foolish boy!  You foolish boy!”

Somewhere I had heard that voice; it held a touch of sadness; it was familiar; it was soft and silken like music that might have been woven out of the moonbeams.  Who was it that always made me think of moonbeams?  I lay still, thinking.

“He dared; he dared; he dared!” she was saying.  “As if there were not two!  He shall pay for this!  Am I to be a plaything?  You poor boy!”

Then I remembered.  I looked up.  It was the Nervina.  She was stooping over with my head against her.  How beautiful her eyes were!  In their depths was a pathos and a tenderness that was past a woman’s, the same slight droop at the corners of the mouth, and the wistfulness; her features were relaxed like a mother’s—­a wondrous sweetness and pity.

“Harry,” she asked, “where is Watson?  Did he go?”

I nodded.

“Into the Blind Spot?”

“Yes.  What is the Blind Spot?”

She ignored the question.

“I am sorry” she answered.  “So sorry.  I would have saved him.  And the Rhamda; was he here, too?”

I nodded.  Her eyes flashed wickedly.

“And—­and you—­tell me, did you fight with the Rhamda?  You—­”

“It was Watson,” I interrupted.  “This Rhamda is behind it all.  He is the villain.  He can fight like a tiger; whoever he is he can fight.”

She frowned slightly; she shook her head.

“You young men,” she said.  “You young men!  You are all alike!  Why must it be?  I am so sorry.  And you fought with the Rhamda?  You could not overcome him, of course.  But tell me, how could you resist him?  What did you do?”

What did she mean?  I had felt his flesh and muscle.  He was a man.  Why could he not be conquered—­not be resisted?

“I don’t understand,” I answered.  “He is a man.  I fought him.  He was here.  Let him account for Watson.  We fought alone at first, until he tried to throw me into this Thing.  Then Hobart stepped in.  Once I thought we had him, but he was too slippery.  He came near putting us both in.  I don’t know.  Something happened—­a bell.”

Her hand was on my arm, she clutched it tightly, she swallowed hard; in her eyes flashed the fire that I had noticed once before, the softness died out, and their glint was almost terrible.