“I’ll tell you,” he answered, smiling. “I was engaged in making my will, which took a lot of thinking though it is short enough. You see, Mea, I am a very rich man now, and it so happens that under our law I can leave my property as I desire, because the settlements are at an end, which he from whom I inherited it could not do. Now, after that trouble with Learmer I remembered that if I die, as we all may do, he would probably take my lands and wealth, which I did not wish. So as the lawyers in England wrote to me to do, I made a will, signed and had it witnessed properly by four of our people who can write, and gave it to Bakhita to keep for the present. Now, Mea, let me go and see this man.”
“May I come with you?” she asked.
“Nay, how can I tell from what he suffers. I will be back presently.”
CHAPTER XXIV.
RENUNCIATION
Rupert went into the outbuilding where the sick man lay and examined him. His eyes were bloodshot, his tongue was black, he had glandular swellings, and his temperature was nearly 106. Moreover, he was passing into a state of coma. He felt his pulse, which was dropping, and shook his head. In his varied experience as an amateur doctor he had never seen a case like this.
Leaving the man, Rupert went into the house to mix some quinine, for he knew not what else to give him. On the table a book lay open which he recognised as a medical work, and while he manipulated the quinine and the water, his eye caught the heading at the top of the page. It was “Plague.” That gave him an idea, and he read the article. Certainly, the symptoms seemed very similar, especially the bubonic swellings, but as personally he had never actually seen a case of plague, he could not be sure. He called the servant in charge of the house and questioned him, that same dragoman who had recently been sick and recovered, but was still very weak. With a little pressure he told Rupert all; how he had visited his relative who was dying of the plague, and as he believed suffered from it himself, like the other man in the hut. Now Rupert was quite sure, and set about taking precautions, sending down to the town for guards to form a cordon round the place, and so forth.
Meanwhile the patient became rapidly worse and he went in to attend to him, staying there till about two hours later, when he died. After seeing to the deep burial of the body, Rupert went to Edith’s house on his way back to the town to warn them of what had happened. Strolling about near it under her white umbrella he found Tabitha and told her the bad news, which personally did not alarm her. She inquired where Dick was, and he replied that he had gone on a hunting expedition, but luckily left his medicine book behind him open at the article which gave him a clue. Next she asked to see the letter which Dick had written to Rupert, and taking it from his pocket, he handed it to her. Tabitha read it attentively.
“I see, Rupert, you have quarrelled with him at last,” she said. “Ach! what a coward that man is!” then a light flashed in her eyes, and she added: “No, I understand now. It is a little trick of dear Dick’s; he knows it is the plague, he runs away, he sends for you, he hopes that you will catch it. Mein Gott! he is not only a coward, he is a murderer; you quarrel with him—what you say?—you beat him? Well, he hit you back with the plague, or try to.”
Rupert began to laugh, then checked himself and said: “No, Tabitha, he would scarcely be such a brute as that. Why! assassination is nothing to it. Anyhow, I am not afraid; I do not catch things.”
“You do not know the dear Dick; I do,” she replied grimly. “Go home, Rupert, at once, burn the clothes you are wearing, sit in smoke, wash yourself all over with soaps, do everything you can.”