In alarm, Vicenti glanced in that direction, and then came close to Peter, seizing him by the arm.
“If he’s mad,” he whispered fiercely, “then I am mad, and I know ten thousand more as mad as he.”
When the sun rose dripping out of the harbor, Vicenti and Peter walked into the garden.
“I can leave him now,” said the doctor. He looked at Peter’s white face and the black rings around his eyes, and laughed. “When he wakes,” he said, “he will be in much better health than you or I.”
“He certainly gave us a jolly night,” sighed Peter, “and I shall never thank you enough for staying by me and Pedro. When a man I’ve roomed with for two years can’t make up his mind whether I am I or a shark, it gets on my nerves.”
A few hours later, in another garden half a mile distant, Pedro was telling his young mistress of the night just past. The tears stood in his eyes and his hands trembled in eloquent pantomime.
“He is so like my young master, your brother,” he pleaded, “so brave, so strong, so young, and, like him, loves so deeply.”
“I am very grateful,” said the girl gently. “For my father and for me he risked his life. I am grateful to him—and to God, who spared him.”
Pedro lowered his eyes as he repeated: “And he loves so deeply.”
The girl regarded him steadily.