“That’s a pity,” commented his master. “I had a wild hope that Roger might have overtaken the man. Anyway we shall know who they are in a few minutes, and patience is a virtue that I’ve plenty of opportunity for practising just now.”
Laboriously he rose from his couch and seated himself near the fire. The effort brought on a fit of coughing, which was still shaking him, when a whipstock rapped upon the door. His servant opened it, and a white man entered, and stood for a moment watching Bracknell as he coughed and groaned. Then suddenly an alert look came in his face and for one instant into his eyes there came a flicker of recognition. He waited until the paroxysm had passed, then in a voice that had in it a note of sympathy he spoke—
“You seem in a bad way, friend.”
The voice of a cultured man, as Bracknell instantly noted, and as he wiped his eyes the sick man looked sharply at the new-comer.
“Yes,” he replied, “and so would you be if you’d had your lungs frozen.”
“Is it as bad as that?” asked the other in a voice that was still sympathetic.
“It is, and worse! I’ve got scurvy too. I suppose you haven’t such a thing as a potato with you?”
The stranger smiled. “As it happens I have. I never travel without in winter, because, as you seem to know, a raw potato is better than lime juice for scurvy, and a sight handier to carry. I shall be happy to oblige you.”
He went to the door of the cabin and called an order to the men outside. A few moments later an Indian entered bringing with him seven or eight potatoes. Bracknell instantly seized one, and taking out a clasp knife began to cut thin slices of the tuber, and to eat regardless of everything but the one fact that here was salvation from one of the diseases which afflicted him. He chewed methodically, without speaking, and Adrian Rayner, for he was the arrival, watched him with curious eyes, reflecting on the irony of the situation which made the heir of an ancient estate glad to eat raw potato; for though he himself remained incognito, he had already recognized Dick Bracknell.