Page:Quartette - Kipling (1885).djvu/33

 A dinner if possible more odious than the breakfast closed the day, and Laura tried in vain to eat the unpalatable food set before her. As I put her into her dooli I was startled to feel that her hand was hot, and trembled in mine with a feverish vibration.

"You are ill," I said; "let us stay here till to-morrow morning, that you may have a chance of being better able to bear the journey."

"I am afraid I am going to be ill," she answered; "but we won't stop here. We will see at the end of the next stage what is best to be done, if I am not better." Her eyes were bright, and her breath came rapidly as she spoke; and my heart died within me as I made every arrangement of which our resources allowed for her comfort. She was inclined to sleep, and had no doubt that would refresh her. I was devoured with anxiety, for I feared another attack of the fever from which she had suffered so severely, and tried in vain to think that it was only natural that the anxiety and grief she had suffered during the last twenty-four hours should produce some ill effect, and to hope that rest was all she needed. She seemed sleeping through the earlier hours of the night; but towards dawn fell into a shivering fit which alarmed me excessively. I heaped upon her all my rugs and wrappings, taking off the overcoat which the chill night air had made me put on, to increase their number. I promised whole flocks of sheep to her bearers if they would quicken their pace; and the good fellows did their utmost and brought us to the door of the rest-house in an incredibly short time.

I took her in my arms, and carried her into the only room the poor little place afforded, and as I laid her upon the cot which stood in the middle of the bleak-looking den she lay back in a stupor, which, in my ignorance of illness, seemed to be of the most alarming kind.

I felt that the first thing to be done was to find her food; and after a hurried search in the outhouses connected with the bungalow, I came upon the khansamah, very drunk.

I adopted my treatment to his condition, and bribed him with a bottle of brandy to procure some milk. A goat was tethered close by, and I returned to Laura's side with a glass of milk, into which I had poured some brandy. The exhaustion of