United States or Indonesia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The stairway being now partly cleared, most of the crowd having rushed down to the street to observe the flight and pursuit, Dr. Helberson mounted to the landing, followed by Harper. At a door in the upper passage an officer denied them admittance. "We are physicians," said the doctor, and they passed in. The room was full of men, dimly seen, crowded about a table.
Another man, who had been observing them for some time, himself unobserved, approached and, courteously lifting his hat from locks as white as frost, said: "I beg your pardon, gentlemen, but when you have killed a man by coming to life, it is best to change clothes with him, and at the first opportunity make a break for liberty." Helberson and Harper exchanged significant glances.
Caught in the current, Helberson and Harper were swept out of the room and cascaded down the stairs into the street. "Good God, Doctor! did I not tell you that Jarette would kill him?" said Harper, as soon as they were clear of the crowd. "I believe you did," replied the other, without apparent emotion. They walked on in silence, block after block.
He replaced it in the candlestick and blew it out. In a physician's office in Kearny Street three men sat about a table, drinking punch and smoking. It was late in the evening, almost midnight, indeed, and there had been no lack of punch. The gravest of the three, Dr. Helberson, was the host it was in his rooms they sat.
His eyes, wild and restless, had in them something more terrifying than his apparently superhuman strength. His face, smooth-shaven, was bloodless, his hair frost-white. As the crowd at the foot of the stairs, having more freedom, fell away to let him pass Harper sprang forward. "Jarette! Jarette!" he cried. Dr. Helberson seized Harper by the collar and dragged him back.
Jarette heard behind him a light, soft sound of footfalls, deliberate, regular, successively nearer! Just before daybreak the next morning Dr. Helberson and his young friend Harper were driving slowly through the streets of North Beach in the doctor's coupé. "Have you still the confidence of youth in the courage or stolidity of your friend?" said the elder man.
And afterward well, it was a tough job changing places with him, and then damn you! you didn't let me out!" Nothing could exceed the ferocity with which these last words were delivered. Both men stepped back in alarm. "We? why why," Helberson stammered, losing his self-possession utterly, "we had nothing to do with it." "Didn't I say you were Drs.
"Oh, but it is 'in your system' for all that," replied Helberson; "it needs only the right conditions what Shakespeare calls the 'confederate season' to manifest itself in some very disagreeable way that will open your eyes. Physicians and soldiers are of course more nearly free from it than others." "Physicians and soldiers! why don't you add hangmen and headsmen?
"Can you tell me," he cried, suddenly checking his speed, "where I can find a doctor?" "What's the matter?" Helberson asked, non-committal. "Go and see for yourself," said the man, resuming his running. They hastened on. Arrived at the house, they saw several persons entering in haste and excitement.
He was about thirty years of age; the others were even younger; all were physicians. "The superstitious awe with which the living regard the dead," said Dr. Helberson, "is hereditary and incurable. One needs no more be ashamed of it than of the fact that he inherits, for example, an incapacity for mathematics, or a tendency to lie." The others laughed.
Word Of The Day