As I supposed, any
number were forthcoming immediately. Your Nepaulese is by nature a beast
of burden; he can carry anything up and down the mountains, and spends
his life in the act of carrying.
I pulled out my pencil, tore a leaf from my note-book, and scribbled a
hasty note to Hilda: "The invalid is--whom do you think?--Sebastian!
He is dangerously ill with some malignant fever. I am bringing him down
into camp to nurse. Get everything ready for him." Then I handed it
over to a messenger, found for me by the retired gentleman, to carry to
Hilda. My host himself I could not spare, as he was my only interpreter.
In a couple of hours we had improvised a rough, woven-grass hammock as
an ambulance couch, had engaged our bearers, and had got Sebastian under
way for the camp by the river.
When I arrived at our tents, I found Hilda had prepared everything for
our patient with her usual cleverness. Not only had she got a bed ready
for Sebastian, who was now almost insensible, but she had even cooked
some arrowroot from our stores beforehand, so that he might have a
little food, with a dash of brandy in it, to recover him after the
fatigue of the journey down the mountain.
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