Then he goes out down the path, no doubt mystified at my eccentric conduct.
What a fool I was not to have thought of this before!
As soon as Dr. Han Sen has had time to get clear of the garden, I hasten off down into Nagasaki, leaving Mousmé, who is evidently sleeping now, in charge of Oka’s wife.
I am going to get the European doctor of the mail-boat to come and see her.
“Why did not I think of this before?” I ask myself as I hasten over the roughly paved roadway down the hillside towards the harbour. Ah! why, indeed, not?
Mousmé was very ill, and at one time I watched beside her day and night, fearing every hour, nay, almost every moment, lest the frail thread of life should be snapped, and the sun of my happiness go down with that of her life.
My friend M’Phail, the cheery doctor of the mail-boat, was most untiring in his attendance; and at last I think professional interest in the case was replaced by a deep and friendly one. Oka’s wife, who has seen so many cases of fever, and so many lives allowed to slip through the native practitioners’ fingers, is unceasing in her praises of the ship’s doctor, whose skill and resourcefulness seem to her simple mind nothing short of miraculous. Indeed, she almost forgets to give the family god, before whose impassive figure a light has been kept burning night and day during her mistress’s illness, any credit for Mousmé’s wonderful recovery.
However, when she remembers it, she in penitence places additional offerings of fruit and flowers on the little shelf on which the image stands, and when I go down to give some order to Oka, I see her prostrated, in the comparative gloom of their basement bed-chamber, pouring out her supplications, whilst the scent of burnt incense pervades the house more than ever.