“Boiled be hanged,” I replied. “She gave it me out of a skin and I drank it at once.”
“You’re a darned young fool for your pains then, and you had better get down to Lima again as soon as possible. The fever will break out on you in less than twenty-four hours, so you had better get down to Chicla and take a train for Lima at once. Come along to my room, and I will make out your pass, and an order for your money, so that you can draw it when you get down to Monserrat.”
I offered a protest, and said I felt perfectly well. But it was no good—he packed me off. I rode on one of the mules to Chicla and caught the train leaving Chicla at one p.m., but before we left the station I began to feel very tired and weary, with severe pains in the muscles of my arms and legs.
When we stopped at San Bartolome to pick up passengers, three young English boys got on the train to go down to Lima. Their ages, as far as I could judge, were between seventeen and eighteen. The eldest was wrapped in a blanket, and his young mates were taking him to Lima Hospital. He had the Oroya fever and looked ghastly I got into conversation with the youngest, who told me they had only been three weeks in the country. They were apprentices on a Liverpool barque, and when they arrived in Callao some men there had persuaded them that they could get a pound a day on the Oroya Railway, and, as their food was very Lad, and very short, on the vessel, they had run away.
With tears in his eyes the young lad told me that Charlie had taken the fever two days after they had started work. The two lads had nursed him as well as they were able, but he grew worse, and the superintendent at last ordered them to take him to the hospital.
What a bitter experience for three young lads in a strange land.
Turning to his sick friend, the boy tried to cheer him up, saying:
“You will soon forget all this Charlie, when we get out to sea again. We shall be down before dark, and you’ll soon be all right when you get into a nice comfortable bed in the hospital.”
The poor sick lad smiled faintly.
“I am dying, Frank, dying,” he murmured, “far away from home, tell mother I am sorry we left the ship.”