“It’s not a question of that—but if he doesn’t drink, it may be fatal.”
“Nonsense. A kind cottager offered him water only a mile back—he didn’t want it. . . . What’s the matter? You’re looking so strange. . . . Have you had a sunstroke?” The alarm in her voice reflected the alarm in his face, and his alarm was in turn augmented by hers. He had a weird vision of that man in Montreal, thrown into convulsions by the sound of a splash and trying to bite his attendants, and a ghastly memory came to him of a Bradmarsh woman who had frizzled for her foaming child the liver of the dog that had bitten it. “Suppose your dog should be mad?” he asked, with white lips that already felt frothy.
“Nip? Nonsense.”
“He bit me.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry. Where? Let me see.”
“I won’t.”
“But Nip never bites.”
“All the more suspicious. Try him with some water, please.”
“Where can I get water? Nip finds his own.”
“You mean to say you don’t carry water?”