“Whom was the Doctor fetched to see? Any one ill?”
The Sergeant chuckled.
“No, sir. It was them rival niggers beginning to cut one another’s throats; but I stopped it with my lads, and then fetched the Doctor. It gave him three or four little jobs. Some on them mean a row.”
Chapter Four.
The Doctor’s Patients.
The looking-glass in Archie Maine’s quarters often told him that he was rather a good-looking young fellow; that is to say, he gave promise of growing into a well-featured, manly youth without any foppish, effeminate, so-called handsomeness. But nature had been very kind to him, and, honestly, he scarcely knew anything about his own appearance; for when he looked in his glass for reasons connected with cleanliness—putting his hair straight, smoothing over his curliness, and playing at shaving away, or, rather, scraping off, some very smooth down—he had a habit of contracting his nerves and muscles so that a pretty good display of wrinkles came into view all over his forehead and at the corners of his lips and eyes, presenting to him quite a different-looking sort of fellow from the one known to his friends.
The morning after the mess dinner, he had given a parting glance in his little mirror, looking very much screwed-up, for his mind was busy with rather troublous thoughts, among which were the events of the past day, especially those connected with his interview with the Major.
Then he had hurried off to take advantage of what little time he had before going on duty, and made for the Doctor’s bungalow. It was not much of a place; but the glorious tropic foliage, the distant view of the river, and, above all, the flowers of the most brilliant colours that were always rushing into bloom or tumbling off to deck the ground made it a brilliant spot in the station, and as he neared it his face smoothed, his sun-browned forehead lost its wrinkles, and, just as he expected, he caught sight of the two reasons for the bungalow looking so bright and gay.