"Say," said Gordineer. "I don't want to disturb the meeting, but Shon's in chancery somehow; breathing like a white pine, and thrashing about! He's red-hot with fever."
Before he had time to say more, Sir Duke seized the candle and entered the room. Shon was moving uneasily and suppressing the groans that shook him. "Shon, old friend, what is it?"
"It's the pain here, Lawless," laying his hand on his chest.
After a moment Sir Duke said, "Pneumonia!"
From that instant thoughts of himself were sunk in the care and thought of the man who in the heart of Queensland had been mate and friend and brother to him. He did not start for England the next day, nor for many a day.
Pretty Pierre and Jo Gordineer and his party carried Sir Duke's letters over into the Pipi Valley, from where they could be sent on to the coast. Pierre came back in a few days to see how Shon was, and expressed his determination of staying to help Sir Duke, if need be.
Shon hovered between life and death. It was not alone the pneumonia that racked his system so; there was also the shock he had received in his flight down the glacier. In his delirium he seemed to be always with Lawless:
"'For it's down the long side of Farcalladen Rise'—It's share and share even, Lawless, and ye'll ate the rest of it, or I'll lave ye—Did ye say ye'd found water—Lawless—water!—Sure you're drinkin' none yourself— I'll sing it again for you then—'And it's back with the ring of the chain and the spur'—'But burn all your ships behind you'—'I'll never go back to Farcalladen more!'"
Sir Duke's fingers had a trick of kindness, a suggestion of comfort, a sense of healing, that made his simple remedies do more than natural duty. He was doctor, nurse,—sleepless nurse,—and careful apothecary. And when at last the danger was past and he could relax watching, he would not go, and he did not go, till they could all travel to the Pipi Valley.
In the blue shadows of the firs they stand as we take our leave of one of them. The Honourable and Sir Duke have had their last words, and Sir Duke has said he will remember about the hunting traps. They understand each other. There is sunshine in the face of all—a kind of Indian summer sunshine, infused with the sadness of a coming winter; and theirs is the winter of parting. Yet it is all done quietly.