At the end of a fortnight, O’Shea was of the opinion that his loyal legion had better seek to mend its fortunes in some other quarter. He was ashamed to look them in the face. The fiasco cut him to the quick. He had been as mad as poor Bill Maguire. In future he would stick to his trade as a shipmaster.
Meanwhile, the malarial poison of the marshes found its way into his blood. He failed to realize that he was ill, and paid no attention to the little flashes of fever that came by night and the creeping, chilly feeling that troubled him in the morning.
There came a day when he was unable to rise from the brick sleeping-platform. The fever increased, suddenly, violently. It caught him unprepared. His plan of retreat had not been announced, and now he was incapable of leadership. His mind alternated between delirium and stupor. When he talked it was of many inconsequential things. One might have said that the evil spirit of the Painted Joss had laid its spell of misfortune upon him. In the court-yard of the tavern his lieutenants held a conference.
“Can anybody make head or tail of this infernal situation?” gloomily inquired Mr. Kittridge. “What in hades are we going to do about it?”
“Try to pull Captain O’Shea through this fever before we think of anything else,” stoutly affirmed Mr. Parkinson. “We jammed into this crazy voyage with our eyes shut. With all of us it was anything to get clear of Shanghai. And it’s useless business to sit and growl about it as hard luck. What do you say, Major Bannister?”
The army man smiled at sight of their discouraged countenances and quietly answered:
“What else can we chaps expect but hard luck? Really, I should be surprised to find anything else. I can tell you one thing, gentlemen. I have campaigned in the tropics, and I know something about this swamp fever. We had best get out of here and take Captain O’Shea with us. If we don’t, he will die as sure as sunrise, and the rest of us will be down with it before long. It caught him first because he was fagged with worry.”
“We agree with you there,” said Mr. Parkinson. “But we seem to have overlooked a line of retreat. That was the Irish of it, I suppose. If we go down river in our two boats we’ll have to work ’em out to sea over those nasty shoals and then run the chance of being picked up adrift. We might get away with it, but it would kill a man as sick as O’Shea.”
“Why not go up-river?” suggested Major Bannister. “By means of a few words of Chinese and a great many gestures I have extracted from the village head-men the information that there is a European mission station about a hundred and fifty miles northwest of here. We can make part of the journey by boat and then hike overland. With a litter and coolies to carry it, we may be able to take Captain O’Shea through alive. It’s better than letting him die in this pest-hole.”
“That’s the most sensible speech I’ve heard since we signed on,” grunted Mr. Kittridge. “And you can pull out of this rotten Wang-Li-Fu not a minute too soon to please me.”