Part 46 (1/2)

”No good, no good,” was the answer of the guide to Harry's repeated queries whether it was not possible to make straight headway in spite of the fog.

”No good, no good.”

And the next day showed no improvement nor the next week even.

The outlook was now very dreary indeed.

To make matters worse, the hopelessness of his situation brought a prostration of mind and body, and the hards.h.i.+ps and privations he had undergone in his wanderings began to tell upon Harry.

Besides, there was the dread marsh miasma to be breathed day after day, while the very appearance and dejectedness of the people he found himself among was not calculated to mend matters. He found himself growing ill, he struggled against it with all the force of his mind.

But alas! a struggle of this kind is like that of floundering in a miry bog--the more you struggle the deeper you sink.

One morning, after a restless night of pained and dreamful slumber, Harry found himself unable to rise from his couch of gra.s.s under the flower-clad, creeper-hung baobab tree.

He was sick at heart, racked with pain in every limb, and oh, _so_ cold.

The cold was worse to bear than anything, yet his pulse was bounding along, his skin was hot, and his brow was burning.

Before night he was delirious--dreaming of home, raving in his waking moments about his father, his mother, about Andrew, and Eily, the forest of Balbuie, and the far-off Highland hills.

No nurse could have been kinder to Harry than Somali Jack, no one more attentive than he and Raggy.

Even in this strange swamp-island Jack managed to find herbs, and exercised all his native skill to bring his patient round.

But nights went by, and days that were like nights to Harry, and he grew worse and worse.

At last even Somali Jack gave up all hope.

”Master will never speak again. Master will never shoot and never fight again,” he said, mournfully, ”till he shoots and fights in the land beyond the clouds.”

Jack sat down and gazed long and intently at Harry, whose jaw had dropped, and whose breath came in long-drawn sighs or sobs.

He lay on his back, his knees half drawn up, and his hands extended on the gra.s.s.

For a long, long time Somali Jack sat looking mournfully at his master; then he seemed to lose all control of himself: he threw out his arms, fell down on his face on the ground, and sobbed as though his heart were breaking.

Book 4--CHAPTER THREE.

BACK AGAIN AT THE HUNDRED ISLES--THE KING AS A NURSE--HARRY TELLS THE

STORY OF THE WORLD--NEWS OF THE ”BUNTING'S” MEN--PREPARING FOR THE WAR-PATH.

But the worst was past, and the fever had spent itself before the dawn of another day; even the terrible marsh miasmata had been repelled by the strength and resiliency of Harry's const.i.tution.

He was weak now, very. But he was sensible and able to swallow a little honey and milk, that Jack had culled and drawn with his own hands.

And that day, lo! the sun again shone out, the birds that had been mute for weeks once more remembered their low but beautiful songs, and surely in this swamp-island never did the wealth of flowers that grew everywhere put forth a more dazzling show. Twisted and pinched they had been while the dank fog hung over them, but now they opened in all their wild wanton glory, and vied with each other in the brightness of their colours, their vivid blues, whites, pinks, and crimsons, and velvety sulphurs, and chocolate browns.

They grew up over the trees, borne aloft on climbing stems, they canopied the bushes, they carpeted the ground, and hung their charming festoons round the fruit itself.

But yet in spite of all this wealth of beauty Harry longed to be off, and almost the first words he spoke, though in a voice but little louder than a whisper, were--