“Why, now, what could be better?” she cried joyfully. “My brother has gone to see Sir Harry and get leave for this very trip, only I never thought we’d find a passage so easily. Sir Harry can’t refuse, and Brian must come on after and overtake us.”
“Or fetch you back, if Sir Harry should refuse.”
“He will not, I’ll answer for him. ’Twould be as much as to say he didn’t wish Ambrose would get better.”
“I have no doubt you would tell him so, ma’am. And you ain’t afraid of the responsibility of looking after your husband with no doctor at hand?”
“Why, what can doctors do for him?” ungratefully. “Ah, now”—realising what she had said,—“you know what I mean. You have done all you can—you said so,—and here he lies in this state, and you can get him no further. You’ll tell me what I’ll do if he seems worse, and I’ll do it. Why would I be frightened at all?”
“I don’t see that the voyage can do him any harm so long as you ain’t shipwrecked or attacked by the Codgers,” said the surgeon dubiously; “and at Bab-us-Sahel you will be able to turn him over to Gibbons. But for pity’s sake don’t go and get marooned on a sandbank, or besieged in some barren spot on the shore without a bit of shade, till your brother comes and rescues you. I can’t answer for Ambrose if he’s exposed to the sun again, remember. The heat is bad enough; you will have to keep the bearer pouring water over him most of the day in any case, I expect.”
“I will, I will; and if we have to be besieged I’ll be sure to pick out a shikargah or some other nice place. And you will see about a pass for us, if one’s wanted, like the angel that y’are, and see that no one would try to stop us, will you not?”
“But I would gladly keep you back myself until your brother was here to take charge of you, if I didn’t know it would mean that you would probably be prevented from going at all. Hang it, ma’am! I wish you had sent me a chit to tell me what you wanted. How is a man to consider things coolly with a flood of blarney pouring on his head?”
“But sure I don’t want you to consider things—only to do them,” said Eveleen innocently, and he went off laughing. That morning it would have seemed absurd that she should actually find her wishes fulfilled by the evening, but so it happened. Mr Firozji, a short elderly man, who contrived somehow to be both stout and wizened at the same time, was evidently waiting outside for the doctor to go. He was very rich, very timid, and so grateful for the prospect of having Major and Mrs Ambrose as fellow-passengers that he would have promised almost anything to secure them, and Eveleen had to insist that they should pay their share of the boat hire and other expenses.
“’Twould be a fine joke against Ambrose to save his pocket by putting him under an obligation to a black man, but I won’t be teasing him when he’s so ill,” she said virtuously to herself. “Though Firozji would maybe think it only fair to pay for the protection of our presence,” she added a little ruefully. “It’s well I’m not timid, for it looks as if my courage would have to do the whole party.”