Page:Hopkinson Smith--armchair at the inn.djvu/199

 only a question if on the morrow his own turn did not come. A strange kind of fear had taken possession of us, sick or well, and a cold, deadening despair had crept into our hearts, so great was the mortality, and so quickly when once a man was stricken did the end come. We were hundreds of miles from civilization of any kind, unable to move our quarters unless we deserted our sick, and even then there was no healthier place within reach. And so, not knowing who would go next, we awaited the end.

“The only other white man in the country besides ourselves was a young English missionary who had taken up his quarters in a native village some two miles away, in the low, marshy lands, and who from the very day of his arrival had set to work to teach and care for the swarms of native children who literally infested the settlement. Many of these had been abandoned by their parents and would have perished but for his untiring watchfulness. When the fever broke out he, with the assistance of those of the natives whom he could bribe to help, had constructed a rude hospital into which the little people were placed. These he nursed with his own hands, and as children