“It will be dark soon, Pete. If we have to spend another night out in the jungle I must lie down under some tree.”
“Mustn’t sir. Cold, rheumatiz’, and fever. You will have to stick to your warm bed up here. But talk about a warm bed—you should have tried sitting like a mahout.”
“It will be dark in an hour, Pete,” said Archie, who seemed to pay no heed to his companion’s brisk chatter.
“Not it, sir. Two hours—full, though I ain’t got no watch. Not as that much matters. Old Tipsy has got a big, old silver one, but he says you never can depend upon it in this damp place. We have got plenty of time to get there yet, and see how old Rajah is swinging along! I am sure he knows his way.”
“Don’t—don’t—pray don’t keep chattering so! It makes me feel worse than ever.”
“You think so, sir,” said Peter stubbornly, “but it don’t; it rouses you up, sir, even if it only makes you turn waxy and pitch into me.”
“Yes, yes, I know, Pete. It’s because I’m so ill. It’s like having a touch of fever again. Then you must think what a beast and a brute I am to you—a regular burden. I could feel it in my heart to slip down under the first big tree and go to sleep, even if I were not to wake again.”
“Hah!” said Pete dryly. “That sounds bad, if it was real, sir; but it’s only what you fancy. How’s your head now?”
“That old pain seems back again worse than ever.”
“Wish we’d stopped an hour ago when we crossed back over the river again, and had ’nother good drink. That must have been about one o’clock, I should say. I don’t know, though—I’ve about lost count. Ain’t it rum, sir, how rivers wind about, and how the elephants’ paths go straight across them?”