My brain was converted into a busy telephone exchange, and every subscriber was ringing up viciously.
"Hello? hello?"
That was from the leg; a cramp. I attended to it.
Again a vicious ring. The swollen knee called for sympathy—anything else I couldn't give it.
A violent call. The tongue this time. Poor member, poor badly-treated member. But be still. Yet somehow, try as it would, it couldn't get back to its proper place.
Then, in a quiet moment, the brain set to work on its own account. Diamond—was Diamond safe? What were the faithful one's injuries?
But another interrupting call: those muscles again.
A mosquito! Ha, sing away, fasten your sucker where you please—you are but a mere circumstance to-night!
Hot Moisture! on my forehead! Now, what mysterious well within me held yet a drop of water? (Was that a rustle? Niggers, perhaps. Ah, well—)