will do you good. I am a physician."

I repelled the glass with my hand and sat up on the couch,
although with an effort, for my head was strangely light.

"I insist upon knowing at once where I am and what you have
been doing with me," I said.

"My dear sir," responded my companion, "let me beg that you
will not agitate yourself. I would rather you did not insist upon
explanations so soon, but if you do, I will try to satisfy you,
provided you will first take this draught, which will strengthen
you somewhat."

I thereupon drank what he offered me. Then he said, "It is
not so simple a matter as you evidently suppose to tell you how
you came here. You can tell me quite as much on that point as I
can tell you. You have just been roused from a deep sleep, or,
more properly, trance. So much I can tell you. You say you were
in your own house when you fell into that sleep. May I ask you
when that was?"

"When?" I replied, "when? Why, last evening, of course, at
about ten o'clock. I left my man Sawyer orders to call me at nine
o'clock. What has become of Sawyer?"

"I can't precisely tell you that," replied my companion,
regarding me with a curious expression, "but I am sure that he is
excusable for not being here. And now can you tell me a little
more explicitly when it was that you fell into that sleep, the