Page:Rowland--The Mountain of Fears.djvu/201

  make, all of which so overcame him that he wept upon my shoulder.

"Of course, I promised to go with him; one could scarcely do otherwise; and, indeed, Doctor, I had a real esteem for the poor fellow, who in many ways had the heart of a child. But the excitement of the whole affair proved too much for his organically diseased heart, and that night he nearly died.

"His steward came in to tell me that he feared his master was moribund, so I got a Spanish surgeon and we worked over him throughout the night. It was several days before he was out of immediate danger, and then there came a typhoon, and his captain wished to put to sea to ride it out. The yacht took the gale like a gull, but altogether it was two weeks before the Count was fit to proceed on the quest of his errant wife.

"We left Jolo early in the morning, and when I awoke the next day we were lying off Port Isabella. I took the gig and went ashore, leaving the Count taking digitalis and almost [ 185 ]