"A bad beginning often makes a good ending," answered José cheerfully. "Let us go to see him."
The doctor, a Spaniard, was attending his patient when we entered the hut, and he beckoned us toward the bed.
I could not repress a start at the sight which met our eyes. The colonel was turning restlessly but feebly from side to side; his eyes were unnaturally bright; his cheek bones stood out sharp and prominent. He mumbled to himself in short snatches, but so faintly that only a word here and there reached us.
Once he smiled pleasantly, saying, "Yes, I see the steeple! Dear old Wingham!"
I did not at that time understand the allusion, but afterwards it became plain that he referred to his home, the home of his childhood, a place called Wingham, in Kent.
"Do you know," said José sharply, turning to the doctor, "that your patient is dying?"
"Perfectly; but what can I do?" replied he. "He is suffering from the tertian ague; the valley is permeated with it."
"We must get him out of it," said José, with decision.
"But where will you take him? the town is as bad."
"On shipboard, and give him a sea-breeze."