Page:Weird Tales volume 36 number 01.djvu/39

Rh loved her since I was that high—" He tried to raise one hand to indicate a Liilliputian stature, found he lacked the strength for it, and lay back, panting, on his pillow. "Her father was a Presbyterian minister and her mother died when she was born."

"Take it easy, lieutenant," I counseled. "Just tell me what you'd like to say to her; don't waste strength on biographies."

"But you onght to know this, sir. It explains why I love her so. You see, 'way back in 1894 her folks went out to Africa as missionaries, and she was born there. Their station was in western equitorial Africa, the gorilla country. One day while her mother was walking in the garden a great big buck gorilla came charging from the jungle. Hunters had killed his mate and he was wild with grief and rage. He snatched her up and made off to the forest, but he didn't hurt her. They found her next day in the hammock he'd made for his dead mate, quite mad from fright, but physically unharmed.

"Her baby was born the next week, and she died in childbed."

As far as I could see there wasn't any connection between the tragedy of the missionary's wife and this young man's love for his daughter, but he seemed to think there was. "He quit the mission field and came back to Philadelphia," he continued in a whisper. "They lived next door to us and Mother sort o' raised her. She was in our house as much as in her own, I guess, and we grew up together. Funny thing about her, though, she'd never go in wadin' with me. When we'd be out in the country she'd go walkin' in the woods or fields, but never took her shoes an' stockings off. Seemed to be sort o' touchy about her feet, though they were small and pretty, and—"

"Better tell me what you'd like to say, son," I advised. It didn't need a doctor's training to see that his sands were running low. "If you'll tell me—"

"Last thing she said when I went off to camp was, "I'll be waitin', Tommy,'" he continued in a husky whisper. "Can't her down when she said that, can I, Doc? Got to get well and go back to her. You see that, don't you?"

"Of course," I nodded. "Sure son, I see perfectly. Now, if you'll just give me her name and address—"

The signs were bad. When I'd come in he had been running a high temperature, now there was a wreath of sweat-drops on his brow beneath the hair-line and his lips were almost lead-colored. I had to bend to catch his answer; even then it hardly reached me, for his voice was faint and thick as if his throat were packed with cotton-wool: "Fe—Fedocia Watrous, six-sixteen Spring—" The pitifully-forced words stopped, not abruptly, but with a slowly sinking faintness, like a voice heard on the radio when the current is shut off with a slow turn.

"Fedocia Watrous!" I repeated. "Why, she's right here in Treves. I'll get her for you in an hour—Nurse!" There was no time for conversation now, and I pressed the buzzarbuzzer [sic] frantically. "Nurse!" Where the devil was that dam' girl, flirting with those convalescent aviators down the hall?

"Strychnine in a hypo hurry!" I commanded when the girl came stumbling in her haste. "If you'd pay more attention to your duties—" It wasn't fair. She'd been on duty since the night before and there were heavy, violet circles underneath her eyes, but raw nerves make raw words, and heaven knew our nerves were all rasped raw. "Never mind," I added as she turned reproachful eyes on me. "Never mind the hypo, Nurse. Call the head orderly and tell him to bring the wheel-cot and change the linen on this bed. We've got another vacancy."

"Oh!" her sob was hard and ugly, like a smothered cry. "Another?"

"Another," I repeated as I drew the sheet across the dead boy's face. I'd nailed