"Well," said the newcomer, "I s'pose you know what he—has—got?"
"Come in, an' sit down there," said the other. "It's fever, for one thing—I've seen it coming on—an' sunstroke for another. What I'm stuck at is if I'm to treat them both together."
Bill looked reflective. "I think I'd take them one at a time. Get the sunstroke out of him, an' then go for the fever. How d' you start on it, Tom?"
"Undo his clothes. That's easy. The buttons is mostly off them, an' he has hardly any on. Then you put cold water on his head."
"That's not easy, anyway! Where the blazes are you going to get cold water from?"
It was somewhat of a paradox, for while there is plenty of water in Western Africa, none of it is cold. Tom, however, was once more equal to the occasion.
"We could get a big spanner from the engine room, an' put it on his head," he said. "There's plenty of them. S'pose you go an' bring one. Any way, we'll swill him with the coldest water we can get."
They laid a soaked singlet upon his head with a couple of iron spanners under it, and then sat down to watch the effect. Somewhat to their astonishment, it did not appear to do him any appreciable good. Darkness closed down as they waited, and it seemed to grow hotter than ever, while the thick white steam rose from the swamps. Tom stood up and lighted the lamp.
"The fever's easier," he said. "I've had it. You give him the mixture—it's down in the book—though I don't know what the meaning of all these sign things is. That starts him perspiring, an' then it's thick blankets. We used to give them green-lime water in the mailboats."
"Where's the green limes?" said Bill. "Any way, I'd give the sunstroke a decent chance first. Perhaps he'll come out of it himself. I don't know that it wouldn't be better if he did."