"Not much, I hope. You are a little hot and feverish. A dose of quinine will do you no harm."
"Hot!" said Jack. "No; I am shivering with cold. I can't keep still."
The dose was administered; and Jack, following his father's movements with his eyes, noticed that he took one himself also.
"Now, my boy," he said, "you have not slept for nearly four and twenty hours, and you spent all last night in the saddle. Unless you take a good rest, you may be ill. Lie as quiet as you can, and try to sleep."
"I will, father; but—I'm so thirsty!"
His father gave him some sherbet, and covered him up comfortably with a silk rug. Then he sat down, and took out his note-book and pencil; but he wrote only a few words in a faint, irregular hand, difficult to decipher: "Have heard from Jacob, my Syrian, that the plain we have just traversed is noted for its deadly malaria—is, in fact, a perfect hotbed of fever. I fear John has it."
After some time Jack dropped off into a troubled doze. Strange dreams came to him, ending usually in some catastrophe that made him start up in sudden fright. Once he thought he was walking by the river, and somehow lost his footing and fell in. He woke up with a cry, "The water is so cold—so dark!" His father was at his side and soothed him.
"Don't you remember," he said, "the dark river turns to light?"