He returned in a few minutes robed in loose garments from Kashmir, with the low Eastern slippers he generally wore indoors.

He sat down among his cushions and leaned back, looking pale and tired; after ordering the lamps to be lit and the doors closed, he motioned me to sit down beside him.
"I have had a bad shaking," he said, "and my head is a good deal bruised.

But I mean to go to-morrow in spite of everything.

In that little vial there is a powerful remedy unknown in your Western medicine.
Now I want you to apply it, and to follow with the utmost exactness my instructions.

If you fear you should forget what I tell you, write it down, for a mistake might be fatal to you, and would certainly be fatal to me." I took out an old letter and a pencil, not daring to trust my memory.
"Put the vial in your bosom while you write: it must be near the temperature of the body.