"As--there--have--been risks," he repeated once more. And now he pushed his chair on one side as he rose from it, exclaiming:
"This won't do. There's something wrong with me. As--there--have--no!--no! I don't want to keep on repeating this phrase over and over again. What is the matter with me? Have I got a fever?"
Thinking this, though as he did so he recognised that his head was by no means clear and that he felt dull and heavy, as a man might do who had not slept for some nights, he thought, too, that it would be best for him to go to bed. Doubtless his liver was affected by the climate; doubtless, also, he would be well enough in the morning.
"There is," he said to himself, "a chemist's in the village of All Pines--I will let him to give me a draught in the morning. I wonder if Zara ever takes a draught--I--I--mean Beatrix. What rot I am talking!" he murmured to himself, "and now, to add to other things the lamp is going out."
Whereon he made a step towards where the lamp stood on the table, and turning up the wicks gently saw that, in a moment, the flames were leaping up the glass chimney and blackening it.
"I thought it was going out," he said to himself, turning the wicks down again rapidly; "I seem to be getting blind too. There is no doubt that I have got a fever. Let me see."
As he spoke he put his hand into his trousers pocket to draw out his keys, it being his intention to open his Gladstone bag and get out a little medicine casket he always carried with him when out of England, and especially when in tropical places; and, in doing so, he leant his head a little to the side that the pocket was on, his chin drooping somewhat towards the lapel of his white jacket.
"I suppose," he muttered, "that my sense of smell's affected too, now. Or else--jacket's getting--some beastly old--old--old tropical smell that clings to everything--in--in such countries. Never mind. Here's keys."
He drew them forth, regarding the bunch with a stare as though it was something he was unacquainted with, and then, instead of putting into the lock of the bag the long slim key which is usual, he endeavoured to insert a large one that really belonged to a trunk he had left behind at the shipping office in Belize as not being wanted.
Reflection served, however, to call to his mind that this key was not very likely to open the bag, and at last, after giving an inane smile at the mistake, he succeeded in his endeavour and was able to get out the contents, and to withdraw the little medicine casket.