No answer came from the couch where Emson lay exhausted by his last
periodical paroxysm of fever. The dog whined softly, and in his way
unintentionally comforted his master by comforting himself. That is to
say, eager for human company, he crept closer, so that he could nestle
his head against him, and be in touch.
That touch was pleasant, and it made Dyke pass his arm round the dog's
neck and draw him nearer, Duke responding with a whine of satisfaction,
followed by a sound strongly resembling a grunt, as he settled himself
down, just as the answer came to the lad's question, "What shall I do!"
It was Nature who answered in her grand, wise way, and it was as if she
said:
"There is only one thing you can do, my poor, heartsore, weary one:
sleep. Rest, and gain strength for the fight to come."
And in the silence and gathering darkness a calm, sweet insensibility to
all his troubles stole over Dyke; he sank lower and lower till his head
rested against the skins, and the coarse, sack-like pillow, formed of
rough, unsaleable ostrich-feathers; and it was not until twelve hours
after that he moved, or felt that there was a world in which he occupied
a place, with stern work cut out for him to achieve.
It was the touch of something cold upon his cheek that roused the
sleeper, and that something cold was the dog's nose.
Dyke did not start; he merely opened his eyes quietly, and looked up at
those gazing at him, and, thoroughly comforted and rested, he smiled in
the dog's face.
"Get out, you old rascal," he said. "You know you've no business to do
that."
Duke uttered a satisfied bark, and then began to caper about the room to
show his delight at the solemn silence of the place being broken; but
stopped directly, and made for the door in alarm, so sudden was the
spring his master made to his feet--so wild and angry the cry the boy
uttered as he bent over the bed.
For full consciousness had returned like a flash, and as he cried, "I've
been asleep! I've been asleep!" he gazed down at his brother, horrified
at the thought of what might have happened, and full of self-reproach
for what he felt to have been his cruel neglect.
But Emson was just as he had seen him last--even his hands were exactly
as they had lain in the darkness the previous night--and when Dyke
placed his hand upon the poor fellow's head, it felt fairly cool and
moist.
Dyke's spirits rose a little at this, but his self-reproach was as great
as ever.
"Oh!" he muttered angrily, "and I pretend to care for him, and promise
him that I will not leave him, and go right off to sleep like that.
Why, he might have died, and I never have moved.--Here, Duke!"
The dog sprang to him with a bound, raised himself, and placed his paws
upon his master's breast, threw back his head, opened his wide jaws,
lolled out his tongue, and panted as if after a long run.
"Here, look at me, old chap, and see what a lazy, thoughtless brute I
am."
But Duke only shook his head from side to side, and uttered a low whine,
followed by a bark.
"There: down! Oh, how could I sleep like that?"
But by degrees it was forced upon him that Emson had evidently passed a
perfectly calm night, and looked certainly better, and he knew that it
was utterly impossible to live without rest.
He awoke, too, now to the fact that he was ravenously hungry, while the
way in which the dog smelt about the place, snuffing at the tin in which
his master's last mess of bread and milk had been served, and then ran
whining to lap at the water at the bottom of a bucket, spoke plainly
enough of the fact that he was suffering from the same complaint.
At the same time, Dyke was trying to get a firm grasp of his position,
and felt half annoyed with himself at the calm way in which he treated
it. For after that long, calm, restful sleep, things did not look half
so bad; the depression of spirit had passed away, his thoughts were
disposed to run cheerfully, and his tendency of feeling was toward
making the best of things.
"Well," he found himself saying, as he ran over his last night's
discovery, "they're only savages! What could one expect? Let them go.
And as to its being lonely, why old Robinson Crusoe was a hundred times
worse off; somebody is sure to come along one of those days. I don't
care: old Joe's better--I'm sure he's better--and if Doctor Dyke don't
pull him through, he's a Dutchman, and well christened Van."
He had one good long look in his patient's face, felt his pulse, and
then his heart beatings; and at last, as if addressing some one who had
spoken depreciatingly of his condition:
"Why, he is better, I'm sure.--Here, Duke: hungry? Come along, old
man."
The dog shot out of the door, giving one deep-toned bark, and Dyke
hurried to the wagon, opened a sack of meal, poured some into the bottom
of a bucket, carried it back to the house, with the dog sniffing about
him, his mouth watering. Then adding some water to the meal, he beat it
into a stiff paste, and placed about half on a plate, giving the bucket
with the rest to the dog, which attacked it ravenously, and not
hesitating about eating a few bits of the cold, sticky stuff himself.
He gave a glance at Emson, and then went to the back, scraped a little
fuel together, lit it, and blew it till it began to glow, hung the
kettle over it for the water to boil, and then, closely followed by
Duke, ran to feed the horses, just as a low, deep lowing warned him that
the cows wanted attention.
Fortunately only one was giving much milk, for Dyke's practice in that
way had been very small: it was a work of necessity, though, to relieve
the poor beasts, which followed him as he hurried back for a pail, one
that soon after stood half full of warm, new milk, while the soft-eyed,
patient beasts went afterwards calmly away to graze.
"Here, who's going to starve?" cried Dyke aloud, with a laugh that was,
however, not very mirthful; and then going back to the fire he kneaded
up his cake, placed it upon a hot slab of stone, covered it with an
earthen pot, swept the embers and fire over the whole, and left it to
bake.
His next proceeding was to get the kettle to boil and make some tea, a
task necessitating another visit to the wagon stores he had brought from
Morgenstern's, when, for the first time, he noticed that a little sack
of meal was missing.
At first he was doubtful, then he felt sure, and jumped at once to the
reason. Jack and Tanta Sal must have gone off to join the blacks he had
seen watching, and not gone empty handed.
Dyke's brow wrinkled up for a few moments. Then his face cleared, for
an antidote for the disease had suggested itself, one which he felt
would come on in periodical fits.
"Here, Duke," he cried. "Up!"
The dog sprang in at the back of the wagon, and looked inquiringly at
him.
"Lie down: watch!"
Duke settled himself upon the wagon floor, laid his outstretched head
upon his paws, and stayed there when his master left to go back to the
house, fetch in the boiling kettle, make tea, and after sweetening half
a basinful and adding a little milk, he took it to his patient's side,
raised his head, held it to his lips, and all unconscious though he was,
found him ready to drink with avidity, and then sink back with a weary
sigh.
"There, old chap," cried Dyke, ignoring the fact that he had not tried,
"you couldn't have tipped off a lot of tea like that yesterday. It's
all right: going to get better fast, and give Master Jack such a licking
as he never had before."
Trying to believe this himself, he now thought of his own breakfast,
fetched in the hot cake and a tin pannikin of milk, and sat down to this
and some tea.
The first mouthfuls felt as if they would choke him, but the sensation
of distaste passed off, and he was soon eating ravenously, ending by
taking Duke a tin of milk for his share, and a piece of the hot bread.
That was a weary morning, what with his patient and the animals about
the place. But he had set his teeth hard, and feeling that he must
depend fully upon himself and succeed, he took a sensible view of his
proceedings, and did what he could to lighten his responsibility, so as
to leave him plenty of time for nursing and attending to his invalid.
The first thing was to do something about the horses and cattle; and,
feeling that he could not do everything by himself, he at once let all
loose to shift for themselves, hoping that they would keep about the
little desert farm, and not stray away into danger. Horses then and
cattle were loosened, to go where they pleased, and the openings
connecting the ostrich-pens were thrown open to give the great birds as
much limit for feeding themselves as he could. Then he fetched water in
abundance for the house, and loaded and laid ready the three guns and
the rifles, with plenty of cartridges by their sides, but more from a
hope that the sight of his armament would have the effect of frightening
Kaffirs away when seen, than from any thought of using them as lethal
weapons, and destroying life.
Then he was face to face with the difficulty about the wagon. These
stores ought not to be left where they were, and he felt that he was too
much worn out to attempt to carry them into the rough-boarded room that
served as store. He was too much exhausted, and the rest of that day he
felt belonged to his patient.
But a thought struck him, and fetching up a yoke of the oxen which were
browsing contentedly a half-mile away, Dyke hitched them on to the
dissel-boom, and, after some difficulty, managed to get the wagon drawn
close up to the fence, and within a few yards of the door.
"Duke will be there, and I should hear any one who came," he said to
himself, and once more set the oxen free to go lowing back to their poor
pasture with the rest of the team, which he had had hard work to keep
from following him at the first.
And now, tired out with his exertions at a time when the hot sun was
blazing on high, and beginning to feel a bit dispirited, he entered the
house again, to be cast down as low as ever, for once more Emson was
suffering terribly from the fit, which seemed to come on as nearly as
could be at the same time daily. Dyke knew that he ought to have been
prepared for it, but he was not, for it again took him by surprise, and
the medicine which he administered, and his brother took automatically,
seemed to have no effect whatever.
He bathed and applied evaporating bandages to the poor fellow's temples,
but the fever had the mastery, and kept it for hours, while Dyke could
at last do nothing but hold the burning hand in his, with despair coming
over him, just as the gloom succeeded the setting of the sun.
Then, just as the boy was thinking that no fit had been so long as this,
and that Emson was growing far weaker, the heat and alternate shivering
suddenly ceased, and with a deep sigh he dropped off to sleep.
Dyke sat watching for a time, and then, finding that Emson was getting
cooler and cooler, and the sleep apparently more natural and right, he
began to think of his plans for the evening. He was determined to keep
awake this time, and to do this he felt that he must have company. The
Kaffirs were hardly likely to come by night, he felt, and so he would
not leave the dog to watch, but going out, called him down out of the
wagon, tied down the canvas curtains back and front, fed the dog well,
and stood at the door waiting until the faithful beast had finished,
watching the while. Then once more he noticed the peculiar light at the
back of the kopje, looking as if the moon were rising, though that could
not be, for there was no moon visible till long after midnight.
But Dyke was too weary to study a question of light or shadow, and as
soon as Duke had finished he called the dog in, closed the door, did
what he could to make poor Emson comfortable, and sat down to pass the
night watching.
But nature said again that he should pass it sleeping, and in a few
minutes, after fighting hard against the sensation of intense
drowsiness, he dropped off fast as on the previous night, but started
into wakefulness in the intense darkness, and sat up listening to the
low growling of the dog, and a terrible bellowing which came from the
pens, where the cattle should be, if they had returned after their many
hours' liberty.
Returned they had for certain, and one of the great, placid beasts was
evidently in a state of agony and fear, while a rushing sound of hoofs
close to where the wagon stood, suggested that the horses and bullocks
had taken flight.
The reason was not very far off from the seeker, for all at once, just
as the piteous bellowings were at their height, there came the terrific
roaring of a lion, evidently close at hand, and this was answered by a
deep growling by the cattle-pens, telling that one lion had struck down
a bullock, and was being interrupted in his banquet by another
approaching near.
Dyke rose, and went to the corner of the room where the loaded rifles
stood, then walked softly toward the door to stand peering out, but not
a sign of any living creature was visible. In fact, a lion could not
have been seen a couple of yards away, but, all the same, the loud
muttered growlings told plainly enough that both the fierce beasts were
close at hand.