“Rodriguez, old scout, I still insist you’re not going to die, but if it makes you get stronger, I’ll tell you that I have nothing in my heart toward you but good will. What have you done to me? Oh, I know I could have been cracked up plenty, but the thing is, I’m not.”
“Not yet, not yet. But you are two hundred miles perhaps from white man, Señor. It is fever and jungle—no water, savage Indians before you get out. Señor Hal, you will die and I am the cause. I send you to it and it makes me afraid to die.”
“Bosh, old egg,” Hal said with a cheerfulness that he did not quite feel. “I’m a lean horse for a long race and, as I told you, I’ve been lost in the jungle before. Of course not quite as serious as this—I didn’t have a lot of bloodthirsty Indians to take into account. Still, I can handle that when I come to it. Where there’s a will, huh? But say, let’s not talk of gloomy things—tell me how you managed to get that plane crippled just at the crucial moment?”
“A powder, Señor, like sand,” he gasped. “She was poured into the oil—enough to make her grind up the engine in the hour—no?”
“I’ll say it would. Clever trick. A gritty substance, huh? Enough to completely disrupt the machinery. Well, it did all right. And how! And you were supposed to try and save yourself as best you could with the chute, huh? Well, I’m sorry now we didn’t let you do it. You wouldn’t be feeling so rotten now. Carmichael’s the kind that can skim through things, I’m certain. I can’t believe he won’t get out.”
“It is my punishment, Señor, my religion she slaps back for thinking too much of the Cause and not enough of human life ... your life!”
“As I told you before, Rodriguez, forget about me. I’m not holding it against you. I’m alive and kicking so far, and if I don’t keep it up, well, then I’m not as good a guy as I thought I was. I’ve got brains and the Indians haven’t. Fever and water and ... well, I haven’t got them yet, but if I do, I’ll pull through.”
“And if not, Señor Hal, would you curse José Rodriguez?” asked the airman pathetically. “Would you curse me if the Indians....”
“Absolutely not, old top,” Hal assured him. “You thought you were doing right for the Cause—doing as you thought was right. Why should I get peeved at you? Little Hal isn’t that way. Now rest yourself and forget your worries. You must be tired out after all that chatter. Close your eyes, old fellow.”
“I do not have the need, Señor Hal,” came the response. “Things are fading—even your face, your bright eyes. I can no longer see them. They are in a mist.”