Chapter Sixteen.
A strange Fever.
It was to Archie Maine like a bad attack of the fever from which he had suffered when he first went up-country in the gunboat from Singapore. There was that horrible beating and throbbing in his head, only intensely more confusing than it had been then; and sometimes, when he could think and everything did not seem mentally upside-down, he was being puzzled by two questions. One was, “Is it jungle fever?” the other, “Is it the throbbing and beating of the gunboat engines?” And this latter he favoured the more because he felt convinced that the heat, the burning, scorching heat, in his head must be because they had put him in a berth close by the furnace fires.
Throb, throb—burn, burn—and then all nothingness for long enough. He could not move; he could not speak; he could not think; only hour after hour in the midst of the throbbing pain he felt dried up, choking with thirst, and always fighting hard to get back the power to think.
What did it all mean? Where was he? There was the throbbing as of the engines, and the heat, but somehow he felt that he could not be on the gunboat. For once in a way there was a roar as of wild beasts; then it was not the roar of wild beasts, for it seemed to be the blast of a bugle, out of tune, harsh, and blown by some horrible giant, so big, so vast, so confusing that, as he was trying to think what it could be and why, everything was all confusion again. If he could only think! If he could only make it out, why it was, and what it was! And he was in a hurry to do this. It seemed as if he was struggling with all his might to be able to think, before everything was shut down again.
He did not know what was going to be shut down, or what there was to be shut down. He did not understand; but he could feel the awful heat, the heavy, burning, throbbing pain, and with it—there was nothing. And what was nothing? Nothing but darkness and the great question: why?—which grew and grew and grew till it became bigger and bigger and resolved itself into something going round and round; and that something seemed to be why he could not think.
How long this went on Archie did not know; but after a time in the darkness there seemed to come a faint dawning like a feeble ray of light, which suggested that he must be at home in England on a frightfully hot day, lying down on one of the benches in the Lion House at the Zoo. For there was that tremendous giant’s roar or trumpeting sound, and this must, he knew, be one of the savage beasts, and had something to do with his having suddenly dropped to sleep and being wakened by the bellowing sound.
Then more darkness—silence—the ever-increasing confusion and whir, and nothingness, till some time or other there was a fresh coming of the dawn, in the midst of which he felt something that seemed wonderfully cool and moist laid upon his head, and a voice that seemed to come from miles away whispered:
“Poor old chap!”