"You have a temperature, I'm sure. Have you taken it?"
"No."
"How's that? I thought that you were careful to watch your health. You told me that you could not afford to be sick."
"So I am, as a rule. But I could not take it this time till my wife left. She would not have gone if she had known."
"You should have gone yourself. The strain has been too much for you. Knowing the shape you are in, why didn't you take a trip to Hong-Kong, or at least to Amoy, and rest a while?"
"That would be to play the part of a hireling shepherd. 'He that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth, and the wolf catcheth them and scattereth the sheep. The hireling fleeth because he is an hireling and careth not for the sheep.'"
Sinclair was silent while he counted the pulse, and awaited the report of the thermometer. When he looked at it, his face was grave.
"What is it?" asked MacKay. "You need not hesitate to tell me. Is it high?"
"Too high for a man to have and be walking about. One hundred and three and four-fifths."
"If it were malaria, I should not mind. I have worked for days on the East Coast with an average of one hundred and three. But this is not malaria. I cannot be deceived in it. I know malaria too well."