[CHAPTER XXII]
THE RECEDING WATER
Jerry started off early the next morning. The rain had ceased but there was a thick fog and, because of the moist vegetation of the tropics, water fairly dripped from the trees, festooned as they were with long streamers of moss and vines.
“I hate to leave you, Ned,” Jerry remarked as he shouldered his gun and put some bread and pieces of bacon into his pocket. “But it can’t be helped. I’ll try and get back by night, even if I don’t find the professor.”
“Do the best you can, Jerry. I’ll look after Bob.”
It was with no small sense of loneliness that Ned watched Jerry disappear into the forest. The trees soon hid him from sight and then Ned set about getting the camp in some sort of order, for they had rather neglected it of late. Bob turned and tossed on his couch. The fever still burned within him but he was much weaker and did not need to be so closely watched. For want of something better Ned administered more nitre, and Bob no longer fought against taking it.
“Poor Bob!” said Ned with a sigh. “I’d rather you’d kick up a fuss. I’d know then you had some life left in you.”
But Bob meekly swallowed the mixture, and when Ned took his arm from under his chum’s head it fell back listlessly on the pillow.
Ned thought the day would never end. He had not the heart to cook anything and ate the remainder of the cold food. He sat in front of the tent gloomily looking at the lake and wondering whether Jerry would find the professor.
Now and then Bob would call out but when Ned hurried in he would find his chum murmuring in delirium. All he could do was to wet the fever-parched lips with water, and renew the damp cloths on the sufferer’s head and chest.