"They must come out of here, now," he said. "They must live with us for to-night. We can't do more now. We've done enough for one day. To-morrow we must rig them up a shanty up on the hill. They'll be pretty well by to-morrow night."
They were doing finely by the next night, as Lionel had foretold. Their second dose was followed up with a preparation of mercury, which the wise men trusted to complete the cure. The patients were pretty well. But the work and excitement of settling them into quarters near "Portobe" made the doctors very far from pretty well. Though the sick-quarters were little more than a roofed-in wind-screen of tarpaulin, the strain of making it was too much for two over-wrought Europeans, not yet used to the heat. Lionel, complaining peevishly of headache, knocked off work before tea. Roger, feeling the boisterous good spirits which so often precede a fit of recurrent fever, helped Lionel into bed, and cheerfully did the sick man's share of building. After this he gave the two patients their supper of biscuit and bully beef (which they ate with very good appetites), and, when they had eaten, put them to bed under their wind-screen. As he worked, he hoped fervently that Lionel was not going to be ill again. He had been peevish, with a slight, irritable fever all the way up the river from Malakoto. If he fell ill again now, all the work would be delayed. Roger wanted to get to work. All their plans had been upset by the bearers' desertion. Any further upsetting of plans might ruin the expedition. The days were passing. Every day brought those poor drowsy devils in the village nearer to their deaths. Soon they would be too ill to cure. He wanted Lionel well and strong, working beside him towards the discovery of a serum. That was the crying need. With Lionel ill, he could do nothing, or nearly nothing. He had so little scientific knowledge. And besides that, he would have Lionel to watch, and the cleansing and feeding of all those twenty-seven sick. He did not see how things were going to get done.
He told himself that things would have to get done, and that he would have to do them. The resolution cheered him, but the prospect was not made brighter by his discovery soon afterwards that Lionel's temperature had shot up with a sudden leaping bound to 103°. That frightened him. Lionel was not going to be ill, he was ill, and very dangerously ill already. His temperature had risen four or five degrees in about half an hour. The discovery gave Roger a momentary feeling of panic. With a fever like that, Lionel might die, and if Lionel died, what then? He would be there alone, alone in the wilds, with drowsed, half-dead savages. He would be alone there with death, in the heart of a continent. He would go mad there, at the sight of his own shadow, like the Australian in the cheerful story. But for Lionel to die, to lose Lionel, the friend of all these days, the comrade of all these adventures, that was the desolating thought. It would not matter much what happened to himself if Lionel were to die.
It was borne in upon him that Lionel's life would depend on his exertions. He would be doctor, nurse, and chemist. Let him look to it. On the morrow, perhaps, there would be two vigorous natives to look to the sick in the village. Meanwhile, there was the night to win through; and that burning temperature to lower.
He managed to administer a dose of quinine. There was nothing more that he could do. Crouching down by the sick man's side made him feel queer. He remembered that he had left neither food nor water in the patients' hut. They ought to have food by them in case they woke hungry, as they probably would, after their long, irregular fast. He carried them some biscuit, and a bucket half full of water. They were sleeping heavily. Nature was resting in them. While coming back from the hut, he noticed that the night struck cold. He shivered. His teeth began to chatter. He felt that the cold had stricken to his liver. He wished that he had not gone out. Coming into the house, he felt the need of a fire; but he did not dare to light one, on account of Lionel. Lionel lay tossing deliriously, babbling the halves of words. Roger gave him more quinine, and took a strong dose himself. There was something very strange about the quinine. It seemed to come to his mouth from a hand immensely distant. There was a long, long arm, like a crooked railway, tied to the hand. It seemed to Roger that it could not possibly crook itself sufficiently to let the hand reach his mouth. After the strangeness of the hand had faded, he felt horribly cold. He longed to have fire all round him, and inside him. He regarded Lionel stupidly. He could do nothing more. He would lie down. If Lionel wanted anything, he would get up to fetch it. He could not sit up with Lionel. He was in for a fever. He got into his bed, and heaped the blankets round him, trembling. Almost at once the real world began to blur and change. It was still the real world, but he was seeing much in it which he had not suspected. Many queer things were happening before his eyes. He lay shuddering, with chattering teeth, listening, as he thought, to the noise made by the world as it revolved. It was a crashing, booming, resolute noise, which droned down and anon piped up high. It went on and on.
In the middle of all the noise he had the strange fancy that his body was not in bed at all, but poised in air. His bed lay somewhere below him. Sitting up he could see part of it, infinitely distant, below his outstretched feet. The ceiling was swelling and swelling just above him. It seemed as vast as heaven. All the time it swelled he seemed to shrink. He was lying chained somewhere, while his body was shrinking to the vanishing point. He could feel himself dwindling, while the blackness above grew vaster. He heard something far below him—or was it at his side?—something or somebody speaking very rapidly. He tried to call out to Lionel, but all that he could say was something about an oyster tree. There was a great deal of chattering. Somebody was trying to get in, or somebody was trying to get out. Something or somebody was in great danger, and, do what he could, he could not help growing smaller, smaller, smaller. At last the blackness fell in upon his littleness and blotted it out.
He awoke in the early morning, feeling as though his bones had been taken out. His mouth had a taste as though brown paper had been burnt in it. Wafts of foul smell passed over him as each fresh gust blew in at the doorway. Something was the matter with his eyes. He had an obscurity of vision. He could not see properly. Things changed and merged into each other. He lifted a hand to brush away the distorting film. He was thirsty. He was too weak to define more clearly what he wanted; it was not water; it was not food; it was not odour; but a bitter, pungent, astringent something which would be all three to him. He wanted something which would cleanse his mouth, supplant this foulness in his nostrils, and nerve the jelly of his marrow. Weakly desiring this potion, he fell asleep from exhaustion. He woke much refreshed after a sleep of about eight hours.
When he looked about him, he saw that Lionel was still unconscious. He was lying there uneasily, muttering and restless, with a much-flushed face. His hands were plucking and scratching at his chest. There was that about him which suggested high fever. Roger hurriedly brought a thermometer and took the sick man's temperature. It had sunk to less than 100°. He thrust aside the pyjama coat, and felt the heart with his finger. The pulse was beating with something of the batting motion of a guttering electric light. The chest was inflamed, with a slight reddish rash.
Roger sat down upon his bed and took a few deep breaths to steady himself. Afterwards he remembered telling himself in a loud, clear voice that he would have to go into this with a clear head, a very clear head. He swilled his head with water from the bucket. When he felt competent he remembered another and more certain symptom. He advanced to the sick man and looked anxiously at his throat glands. He had braced himself for the shock; but it was none the less severe when it came. The glands were visibly swollen. They were also very tender to the touch. Lionel had relapsed. He was suffering from trypanosomiasis. The disease was on him.
Roger passed the next few minutes biting his lips. From time to time he went back to the bed to look at the well-known symptoms. He was sure, only too sure, but each time he went he prayed to God that he might be mistaken. He went over these symptoms in his mind. High temperature, a rapid pulse, the glands of the neck swollen, a rash on the chest, hands, or shoulders, a flushed face, and feeble movements. There was no doubting the symptoms. Lionel was in a severe relapse.