These bouts were succeeded by copious outpourings of saliva, welcome at first for their dilution of the brimstone heavings, but then a source of horror as they threatened drowning. He had a dim sense of himself at one point, lying with his head hanging over the edge of the sofa, drooling like a maddened dog, before someone pulled him upright and tried once more to pour something down his throat. It was cool and glutinous, and at the touch of it on his palate, his inward parts again revolted. At last the dense perfume of poppies spread itself like a bandage across the raw membranes of his nose; he sucked feebly at the spoon in his mouth and fell with relief into a darkness shot with fire.

He woke some unimaginable time later from the disorientation of opium visions, to find one of the monstrous faces of his dreams still present, bending over him—a pallid countenance with bulging yellow eyes and lips the color of raw liver. A clammy hand clutched him by the privates.

“Do you suffer from a chronic venereal complaint, my lord?” the countenance inquired. A thumb prodded him familiarly in the scrotum.

“I do not,” Grey said, sitting bolt upright and pressing the tail of his shirt protectively between his legs. The blood rushed from his head and he swayed alarmingly. He seized the edge of a small table by the bed to keep upright, only then noting that in addition to the clammy hands, the dreadful countenance was possessed of an outsize wig and a wizened body clad in rusty black and reeking of medicaments.

“I have been poisoned. What sort of infamous quack are you, that you cannot tell the difference between a derangement of the internal organs and the pox, for God’s sake?” he demanded.

“Poisoned?” The doctor looked mildly bemused. “Do you mean that you did not take an excess of the substance deliberately?”

“What substance?”

“Why, sulphide of mercury, to be sure. It is used to treat syphilis. The results of the gastric lavage— What are you about, sir? You must not exert yourself, sir, really, you must not!”

Grey had thrust his legs out of bed and attempted to rise, only to be overcome by another wave of dizziness. The doctor seized him by the arm, as much to keep him from toppling over as to prevent his escape.

“Now, then, sir, just lie back . . . yes, yes, that is the way, to be sure. You have had a very narrow escape, sir; you must not imperil your health by hasty—”

“Von Namtzen!” Grey resisted the hands pushing him back into bed, and shouted for assistance. His throat felt as though a large wood-rasp had been thrust down it. “Von Namtzen, for God’s sake, where are you?”