“I would not like the place, commandant. Only, you see, when we were
down there on the Kamboja, and Baptist Lefloch was writhing like a worm
in the grip of the cholera, and when he was already quite blue and cold,
Lieut. Champcey did not send for one of those lazy Annamites to rub him,
he came himself, and rubbed him till he brought back the heat and life
itself. Now, you see, I want to do some little for him.”
“You would be a great scamp if you did not.”
The surgeon hardly left the wounded man himself. He visited him four
or five times a day, once at least every night, and almost every day
remained for hours sitting by his bedside, examining the patient, and
experiencing, according to the symptoms, the most violent changes from
hope to fear, and back again. It was thus he learned a part, at least,
of Daniel’s history,--that he was to marry a daughter of Count Ville-
Handry, who himself had married an adventuress; and that they had
separated him from his betrothed by a forged letter. The doctor’s
conjectures were thus confirmed: such cowardly forgers would not
hesitate to hire an assassin.
But the worthy surgeon was too deeply impressed with the dignity of his
profession to divulge secrets which he had heard by the bedside of a
patient. And when the magistrate, devoured by impatience, came to him
every three or four days, he always answered,--
“I have nothing new to tell you. It will take weeks yet before you
can examine my patient. I am sorry for it, for the sake of Evariste
Crochard, surnamed Bagnolet, who must be tired of prison; but he must
wait.”
In the meantime, Daniel’s long delirium had been succeeded by a period
of stupor. Order seemed gradually to return to his mind. He recognized
the persons around him, and even stammered a few sensible words. But he
was so excessively weak, that he remained nearly all the time plunged in
a kind of torpor which looked very much like death itself. When he was
aroused for a time, he always asked in an almost inaudible voice,--
“Are there no letters for me from France?”
Invariably, Lefloch replied, according to orders received from the
doctor,--
“None, lieutenant.”
But he told a falsehood. Since Daniel was confined to his bed, three
vessels had arrived from France, two French and one English; and among
the despatches there were eight or ten letters for Lieut. Champcey. But
the old surgeon said to himself, not without good reason,--
“Certainly it is almost a case of conscience to leave this unfortunate
man in such uncertainty: but this uncertainty is free from danger, at
least; while any excitement would kill him as surely and as promptly as
I could blow out a candle.”
A fortnight passed; and Daniel recovered some little strength; at last
he entered upon a kind of convalescence--if a poor man who could not
turn over in bed unaided can be called a convalescent. But, with his
returned consciousness, his sufferings also reappeared; and, as he
gradually ascertained how long he had been confined, his anxiety assumed
an alarming character.
“There must be letters for me,” he said to his man; “you keep them from
me. I must have them.”
The doctor at last came to the conclusion that this excessive agitation
was likely to become as dangerous as the excitement he dreaded so much;
so he said one day,--
“Let us run the risk.”
It was a burning hot afternoon, and Daniel had now been an invalid for
seven weeks. Lefloch raised him on his pillows, stowed him away, as he
called it; and the surgeon handed him his letters.
Daniel uttered a cry of delight.
At the first glance he had recognized on three of the envelopes
Henrietta’s handwriting. He kissed them, and said,--
“At last she writes!”
The shock was so violent, that the doctor was almost frightened.
“Be calm, my dear friend,” he said. “Be calm! Be a man, forsooth!”