"See what an artist you are!" Timar said, admiringly, and got him to draw another letter. "You are a clever fellow. What is your name?"
"Joso Berkics."
"And yours?"
"Mirko Jakerics."
"Well, God bless you! Let us drink a glass of Slivovitz." They had nothing against the proposition. "I am called Michael; my surname is Timar—a good name, and sounds just the same in Hungarian, Turkish, or Greek—call me Michael."
"Egbogom Michael."
Michael ran constantly into the cabin to see after Timéa. She was still very feverish, and knew no one. But that did not discourage Timar: his idea was that whoever travels on the Danube has a whole chemist's shop at hand, for cold water cures all maladies. His whole system consisted in putting cold compresses on head and feet, and renewing them as soon as they got hot. Sailors had already learned this secret before Priessnitz the hydropath. The "St. Barbara" floated quietly all day up-stream along the Hungarian bank. The Servians soon made friends with the crew, helped them to row, and in return had a thieves' roast offered them from the galley.
The dead man lay out on the upper deck; they had spread a white sheet over him—that was his shroud. Toward evening Michael told his men that he would go and lie down for a spell—he had had no sleep for two nights; but that the vessel might as well go on being towed till it was quite dark, and then they could anchor. He had no sleep that night either. Instead of going into his own cabin, he stole quietly into Timéa's, placed the night-lamp in a box, that its light might not disturb her, and sat the whole time by the sick girl's bed listening to her delirious fancies and renewing her compresses. He never shut his eyes. He heard plainly when the anchor went down and the ship was brought up; and then how the waves began to plash against the sides! The sailors tramped about the deck for some time, then one by one they turned in. But at midnight he heard a dull knocking. That sounds, thought he, like hammering in nails whose heads have been covered with cloth to muffle the sound. Before long he heard a noise like the fall of some heavy object into the water, then all was still.
Michael remained awake, and waited till it was light and the vessel had started again. When they had been an hour on their way, he came out of the cabin. The girl slept quietly, the fever had ceased.
"Where is the coffin?" was the first question.