Harry tossed restlessly, unmindful of what was going on around him. His heavy, rapid breathing filled the place. Once in a while he moaned slightly, every sound of this kind going through Tom like a knife.
A particularly deep moan caused Tom to shiver and close the book.
He went over and felt Harry's hot, drier skin.
"Jim," he directed, "I'm sure that, somehow, we should force the perspiration through his dry, parched skin. Take some of the blankets out of my bunk and spread them over Harry."
"It'll make his fever worse, won't it?"
"I'm sure I don't know," Tom admitted helplessly. "We'd better try it for a while, anyway."
Then Tom stood looking down at the flushed face of his chum, muttering below his breath:
"Harry, old fellow, I wish your mother were here. She'd know just what to do. And for your mother's sake, as well as my own, I've just got to blunder into something that will cure you."
Heaving a sigh, Tom went back under the lamp to read with blurted eyes.
At last he struck a paragraph that he thought bore on the case in hand. He read eagerly, praying for light.
"I've got it, at last," he announced, moving over to the bunk, beside which Ferrers stood.