“And I’m certain you did not, my dear boy. We have no muddy tidal river here for them to frequent. It was all fever-born, Nat, my boy; believe me.”
All the while he was talking I saw that he was busy getting something ready. First he put a little white powder in a glass, then he poured a few drops of something over it, and filled it up with water, stirring it with a little bit of glass rod before kneeling down by me.
“There, Nat,” he said kindly, “drink that off.”
“What is it, uncle?” I said, taking the glass with hot and trembling hand.
“A preserving thing, my boy. One of the greatest blessings ever discovered for a traveller. It is quinine, Nat, fever’s deadliest enemy. Down with it at once.”
The stuff was intensely bitter, but my mouth was so hot and parched, and the water with it so cool and pleasant, that I quite enjoyed it, and drew a deep breath.
“There, now, lie down again, my boy, and be off to sleep. Don’t fill your head full of foolish imaginings, Nat. There is nothing to fear from wild beasts here.”
“But am I going to be very ill, uncle?”
“No, certainly not. You will sleep after that till three or four hours past sunrise, and then you will waken, feeling a little weak, perhaps, but in other respects all right. Perhaps it will come back again, and if it does we will rout it out once more with some quinine. Why, Nat, I’ve had dozens of such attacks.”
I lay back, feeling more at rest, and satisfied that uncle was right about the beasts, for there was no sound now to trouble me; only the lapping of the water, which seemed to be only the waves now beating softly upon the sand, while the heavy breathing was certainly Ebo’s, that gentleman never having moved since I touched him.