“Are you going to weaken—now?” Drake asked reproachfully.
“I was not thinking of myself but of the men. If Europe is going to intervene, she will already have done so. I don’t see what good we shall do by remaining.”
“We must see it through. You are ill or I don’t think that you would suggest that we should play the coward.”
“Perhaps you are right,” Gaunt answered with a sigh.
There is nothing more demoralizing than convalescence after malaria, and at such moments a man is not really responsible for himself.
The next day Gaunt was much better and there was a look of shame on his face when Drake entered.
“I must have been mad,” he said apologetically.
“Not mad—only ill,” Drake answered gently.
Captain Armstrong’s head appeared at the door.
“There’s a large yacht about five miles off. She’s evidently coming to pay us a visit,” he announced.