his father's head had become so great that he had begun to reel about,
overthrowing one of the parrots on its perch. The parrot flew at master,
thinking he had done it---- Never mind the parrot, Joseph replied
angrily, confusing the messenger, who told him that the master had
entered the house on Tobias' arm, and had sat down to supper but had
eaten nothing to speak of. None of us dared to go to bed that night, the
messenger continued. We sat up, expecting every moment somebody to come
down from the room overhead to tell us that the master was dead. The
next part of the messenger's story was like a tangled skein, and Joseph
half heard and half understood that the great physician that had come
from Tiberias had said that he must awaken the master out of the swoon
and at any cost. He kept bawling at him, the messenger said. Bawling at
him, Joseph repeated after the messenger, and the messenger repeated the
words, bawling at him, and saying that the physician said the master's
swoon was like a wall and that he must get him to hear him somehow. He
said the effort would cost your father, Sir, a great deal, but he must
get him to hear him. The story as the servant related it seemed
incredible, but he reflected that servants' stories are always
incredible, and Joseph learned with increasing wonder that Dan had heard
the physician and sat up in bed and spoken reasonably, but had fallen
back again unconscious, and that the physician on leaving him said that
they must get his mouth open somehow and pour a spoonful of milk into
his mouth, and call upon him as loudly as they could to swallow. What
physician have they sent for? Joseph asked the messenger, but he could
not remember the name.

It was Ecanus who was sitting by Dan's bedside when Joseph arrived, and
Joseph learnt by careful nursing and feeding him every ten minutes there
was just a chance of saving Dan's life.