She was too much of a nurse, and had
imbibed too much of the true medical sentiment, to let me desert a
man in peril of his life in a tropical jungle. So, in spite of Lady
Meadowcroft, I was soon winding my way up a steep mountain track,
overgrown with creeping Indian weeds, on my road to the still
problematical village graced by the residence of the retired gentleman.
After two hours' hard climbing we reached it at last. The retired
gentleman led the way to a house in a street of the little wooden
hamlet. The door was low; I had to stoop to enter it. I saw in a moment
this was indeed no trick. On a native bed, in a corner of the one room,
a man lay desperately ill; a European, with white hair and with a skin
well bronzed by exposure to the tropics. Ominous dark spots beneath the
epidermis showed the nature of the disease. He tossed restlessly as he
lay, but did not raise his fevered head or look at my conductor. "Well,
any news of Ram Das?" he asked at last, in a parched and feeble voice.
Parched and feeble as it was, I recognised it instantly. The man on the
bed was Sebastian--no other!
"No news of Lam Das," the retired gentleman replied, with an unexpected
display of womanly tenderness.
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