CHAPTER IX.

THE DEAD RESTORED.

Nurse Ives lifted the little body out of the trunk and laid it down on a pile of warm blankets in front of the hot fire; then, taking the electric battery from the table, she proceeded to put it in order and applied it to the side of the child’s neck and over the region of his heart, just as she had done before in Ashley Mansions. On this occasion, however, the electric current was far more powerful.

The nurse watched the child with keen anxiety as she used this means for his restoration. At first the strong electric current seemed to have little or no effect; then gradually the color, which had been restored to the child’s cheeks when the amyl nitrite had been applied, deepened and the eyelids quivered very slightly. At last the eyes were opened just for an instant and then closed again. When this happened the nurse ceased to apply the current, and, rushing to the table, prepared a hypodermic injection of ether. This was quickly injected into the child’s arm. The effect was instantaneous—a gentle glow pervaded the whole of the hitherto icy frame and the little body quivered from head to foot.

Once again the boy’s eyes were opened, and now it was quite apparent that he was breathing, although very faintly. Nurse Ives began gently to rub the limbs with her warm hands. Stooping low, she breathed with her own hot breath into the child’s mouth. His breath was now coming calmly and steadily.

She once again applied the current, and the boy began to stir. Then she lifted the arms above the head and put them down again, performing by this means artificial respiration. The child now looked steadily at her. There was a dreamy, unconscious film over the bright, dark eyes; but he was awake, alive—no longer a corpse. He was a living boy once again.

Nurse Ives took the little wrist between her finger and thumb—the pulse was working, but somewhat shakily.

She did not dare to lift the boy yet into a sitting position. She allowed the full influence of the fire to pervade his icy frame, and occasionally she still applied a gentle current of electricity.

After a time she put away the instrument, and, kneeling by the child, put into his mouth a few drops of very strong soup mixed with brandy. He swallowed a little. She felt the pulse again. It was steady, stronger, less intermittent.

“Where am I?” asked little Piers.

“With me, my dear little man, quite safe. Don’t talk now; you are weak. I am going to give you something nice to eat.”

“I am—_awfully_ hungry,” said the child.

The nurse knelt low by his side. She fed him by drops. She had made up her mind that the child should live. Her exertions were rewarded. She thought of nothing else at the moment, her soul was filled with pure gladness. She even forgot Tarbot.

“They all think that he is screwed up in his little coffin—that he is dead, dead, dead!” she said to herself, “and yet I have him here alive and well. It was a terrible experiment, but it has succeeded. I have saved him from the hands of a wicked man.” She clasped her hands, fell on her knees, and covered her face. “And yet I love that man,” she cried with a groan.

She trembled all over. The boy called her, however, and she had to exercise self-control. Hour by hour he was now getting rapidly better. Not only did he recover full consciousness, but he seemed stronger than before the long trance to which he had been subjected.

“It is a wonderful case,” thought Nurse Ives. “More wonderful even than that case which excited so much remark in Paris when I was with Dr. Weismann. I am the cleverest woman in England—I have brought the dead back to life. You will do now, my little man,” she said aloud, looking at the child as she spoke.

The boy was gazing at her intently. He was sitting up; he looked quite strong, and there was color in his cheeks.

“Where am I?” he asked. He gazed anxiously round the queer little room.

“You are on a visit to me, I am taking care of you. I am your nurse. Don’t you love me?”

“But you aren’t my real nurse,” said little Piers. “What folly you talk! You’re only the woman who came in to nurse me when I was taken ill. Where am I? I want to go home to mother and to Dick. Where is Dick? He was the last person I saw before——” The child began to shudder and tremble.

“What is it, little one? Don’t look like that. What is troubling you?”

“Take me in your arms, nurse,” said the child.

The nurse seated herself on a low rocking-chair and lifted the boy into her embrace. His face was deadly white again, the faint trace of color having left it, but his eyes, large and beautiful, were fixed with wonder in them on the nurse.

“Are you,” he said, speaking very slowly and with pauses between, “the same woman—who—used to nurse me when—I was—very ill—at home?”

“Yes, dear.”

“You had red hair?”

“Yes, dear.”

“I didn’t like you then.”

“No, dear.”

“But”—he glanced up at her—“your hair isn’t red now: it’s gold, and I _like you_.”

“Lay your head on my breast, little man. I am so glad you like me. I like you, too.”

The child’s dark head fell upon the woman’s breast, and a moment afterwards he sank into a gentle sleep.

“He’ll do, he’ll live,” she muttered. “Luke Tarbot, what a sell for you! He’ll live, he’ll live! Thank God! Yes, I can manage everything my own way now. Luke thought himself cleverer than I. I am playing my own game, and this”—she glanced at the child—“this little fellow is the ace of trumps.”

Nurse Ives presently lifted the boy and carried him into the next room. She undressed him and lay down beside him, taking him in her arms. The child slept during all the night, but the woman lay awake. She was too excited to sleep—she was a desperate woman, and she was playing a desperate game.

In the morning the child awoke, looking much better. He was now lively and full of questions, anxious to go home, talking frequently about his mother, about Barbara and Dick.

“Why are you keeping me here?” he said to Nurse Clara, but though he asked the question he was not in the least alarmed. He was only seven years old: a precocious boy of his age; but at seven our faith is large, and we believe, as a rule, what is said to us.

During the following day Nurse Ives did not dare to leave him. While she watched him, and played with him, and chatted and got him to tell her his innocent thoughts, she was turning over a weighty problem in her mind. It would, she felt certain, be madness to confide her secret to another, and yet she knew that if she married Tarbot, as she meant to do almost immediately, she must get some one to help her in the care of the boy.

Early in the evening Nurse Ives took the child in her arms and rocked him off to sleep. He was wide awake when she began and resisted her efforts.

“Don’t stare at me,” he said, beginning to shudder. “I don’t like it.”

She took no notice. She did not mean to mesmerize him again after to-night, but to-night she must do it. It was all important that he should remain absolutely quiet during Tarbot’s visit. She fixed her eyes on his face. Soon his bright dark eyes looked steadily into hers, and a curious look came into them. He closed them in a few moments, repose settled down over each feature, his breath came softly and gently. She carried him then into her little bedroom, put him in the bed which she had previously warmed, and, putting a nightlight in a distant corner, softly shut the door. He was mesmerized into a tranquil sleep, not in the least resembling the cataleptic state in which he was the night before. Nurse Ives now felt certain that the child would sleep undisturbed during Tarbot’s visit.