So it is now or never." Then bidding me hold the man's right arm, he took the sterilized syringe which he had prepared, and thrusting the needle into a vein he selected just above the wrist, injected the contents.
"It would have been better over the heart," he whispered, "but I thought I would try the arm first.

I don't like risking chills by uncovering him." I made no answer and again we waited and watched.
"Great heavens, he's stirring!" I gasped presently.
Stirring he was, for his fingers began to move.
Bickley bent down and placed his ear to the heart--I forgot to say that he had tested this before with a stethoscope, but had been unable to detect any movement.
"I believe it is beginning to beat," he said in an awed voice.
Then he applied the stethoscope, and added, "It is, it is!" Next he took a filament of cotton wool and laid it on the man's lips.
Presently it moved; he was breathing, though very faintly.

Bickley took more cotton wool and having poured something from his medicine-chest on to it, placed it over the mouth beneath the man's nostrils--I believe it was sal volatile.
Nothing further happened for a little while, and to relieve the strain on my mind I stared absently into the empty coffin.

Here I saw what had escaped our notice, two small plates of white metal and cut upon them what I took to be star maps.

Beyond these and the glowing boxes which I have mentioned, there was nothing else in the coffin.