THE LAST MIRACLE
By M. P. SHIEL
Author of "The Yellow Danger," "The Lord of the Sea,"
"The Evil thatMen do," "The Yellow Wave," etc.
LONDON
T. WERNER LAURIE
CLIFFORD'S INN
1906
"My domain how lordly large, sublime!
Time's my domain; my seedfield's Time."
THE LAST MIRACLE
Towards the end of May 1900 the writer received as noteworthy a letterand packet of papers as it has been his lot to examine. They came from agood friend of mine, a Dr A. Lister Browne, M.A. Oxon., F.R.C.P., whom,as it happened that for some years I had been living mostly in France,and Browne being in Norfolk, I had not seen during my visits to London.Moreover, as we were both bad correspondents, only three notes hadpassed between us in the course of those years.
But in the May of 1900 there reached me the letter—and the packet—towhich I refer, the packet consisting of four note-books full ofshorthand, the letter also pencilled in shorthand, and this letter,together with the note-book marked "I.," I now publish.
[The note-book marked "II." has already appeared under the title of "TheLord of the Sea," and that marked "III." under the title of "The PurpleCloud," each in three languages; while that marked "IV." has been judgedunsuitable to publication.]
The following is Browne's letter:—
"Dear old Man,—I have been thinking of you, wishing that you were hereto give me a last squeeze of the hand before I—go. Four days ago Ifelt a soreness in the throat, so in passing by old Johnson's surgery atSelbridge, I asked him to have a look at me. He muttered something aboutmembranous laryngitis which made me smile; but by the time I reachedhome I was hoarse, and not smiling: before night I had stridor. I atonce telegraphed to London for Horsford, and he and Johnson have beenopening my inside and burning it with the cautery, so I am breathingeasier now, and it is wonderful how little I suffer; but I am too old ahand not to know what's what: the bronchi are involved—too far, and,as a matter of fact, there isn't any hope. Horsford is still fondlyhoping to add me to his successful-tracheotomy statistics; but I havebet him not, and the consolation of my death will be the beating of aspecialist in his own line.
"I have been arranging some of my affairs, and remembered thesenote-books which I intended letting you have long ago; but you know myhabit of putting things off, and, moreover, the lady was alive fromwhose mouth I took down the words. She is now dead, and, as a man ofbooks, you should be interested, if you can manage to read them.
"I am under a little morphia at present, propped up in a nice littlestate of languor, so I will give you in the old Pitman's somethingabout her. Her name was Miss Mary Wilson; she was about thirty when Imet her, forty-five when she died, and I knew her all those fifteenyears. Do you know anything of the philosophy of the hypnotic trance?That was the relation between us—hypnotist and subject. She sufferedfrom tic of the fifth nerve, had had all her teeth drawn before I knewher, and an attempt had been made to wrench out the nerve by theexternal scission. But it made no difference: all the clocks inpurgatory tick-tacked in that poor woman's jaw, and it was a mercy ofProvidence that ever she came across me.
"Well, you never knew an