There was a little noise. A queer little noise, like a sick man coughing. Then a little thud. Then nothing. The doctor looked grim.
“I think we’ve got it now,” he said, with his mouth twisted wryly.
He put his hand in his pocket and went streaking to where Vetter had gone. I thought I heard the murmur of his voice. Then he came back. He was smiling, but most unpleasantly.
“You were mistaken,” he said pleasantly, “if you thought you heard me talking to anybody. Vetter is sick. Very sick. Cary, go to the boat and get my medicine-case. And you,” he said to me, “you tell the sergeant in command of the soldiers that Vetter is sick with fever brought on by excitement, and there mustn’t be any noise. Not even challenges. And certainly no shooting. Not under any circumstances.”
We went. The doctor’s face was curious; grim and queerly amused. But I knew he hadn’t found exactly what he expected when he chased Vetter. I knew just what had happened the minute he let me in the room. There was nobody in the room but Vetter. The girl had disappeared. The doctor made me help him, and it was an unpleasant job.
When Cary came back, the doctor kept him busy on errands to the soldiers. He kept the soldiers busy, getting hot water hotter and cold water colder and generally occupied with duties that certainly weren’t guard-duty. And bringing sheets and pillows and one thing and another. Cary, at the door, always growled that he’d no taste for trying to keep Vetter alive. Cary was sentimental about a pretty girl.
The sun had just risen when the doctor stopped. We came out of the sick-room and he told me to tell the sergeant the news. I went and broke it as positively as I knew how. Vetter was dead, of fever with complications. And the sergeant shuffled uneasily and said that the gunboat would be due in a week more.
I went back, and Cary was staring at the figure on the bed that we’d drawn a sheet over. There were one or two suspiciously wet spots on the floor, but Cary didn’t notice them, or think that they looked as if we had been scrubbing there.
He stared at the figure. Then he tiptoed over and drew back the sheet from the face. Curious to look at a man you cordially disliked, when he’s past being disliked any more.
“What was the matter with him?” asked Cary.