“Three more days,” said Trench.
“Only three more days,” Feversham replied. And in a minute they were neither in England nor the Sudan. The stars marched to the morning unnoticed above their heads. They were lost in the pleasant countries of sleep.
XXIX
Colonel Trench Assumes a Knowledge of Chemistry
“Three more days.” Both men fell asleep with these words upon their lips. But the next morning Trench waked up and complained of a fever; and the fever rapidly gained upon him, so that before the afternoon had come he was lightheaded, and those services which he had performed for Feversham, Feversham had now to perform for him. The thousand nights of the House of Stone had done their work. But it was no mere coincidence that Trench should suddenly be struck down by them at the very moment when the door of his prison was opening. The great revulsion of joy which had come to him so unexpectedly had been too much for his exhausted body. The actual prospect of escape had been the crowning trial which he could not endure.
“In a few days he will be well,” said Feversham. “It is nothing.”
“It is Umm Sabbah,” answered Ibrahim, shaking his head, the terrible typhus fever which had struck down so many in that infected gaol and carried them off upon the seventh day.
Feversham refused to believe. “It is nothing,” he repeated in a sort of passionate obstinacy; but in his mind there ran another question, “Will the men with the camels wait?” Each day as he went to the Nile he saw Abou Fatma in the blue robe at his post; each day the man made his sign, and each day Feversham gave no answer. Meanwhile with Ibrahim’s help he nursed Trench. The boy came daily to the prison with food; he was sent out to buy tamarinds, dates, and roots, out of which Ibrahim brewed cooling draughts. Together they carried Trench from shade to shade as the sun moved across the zeriba. Some further assistance was provided for the starving family of Idris, and the forty-pound chains which Trench wore were consequently removed. He was given vegetable marrow soaked in salt water, his mouth was packed with butter, his body anointed and wrapped close in camel-cloths. The fever took its course, and on the seventh day Ibrahim said:—
“This is the last. Tonight he will die.”
“No,” replied Feversham, “that is impossible. ‘In his own parish,’ he said, ‘beneath the trees he knew.’ Not here, no.” And he spoke again with a passionate obstinacy. He was no longer thinking of the man in the blue robe outside the prison walls, or of the chances of escape. The fear that the third feather would never be brought back to Ethne, that she would never have the opportunity to take back the fourth of her own free will, no longer troubled him. Even that great hope of “the afterwards” was for the moment banished from his mind. He thought only of Trench and the few awkward words he had spoken in the corner of the zeriba on the first night when they lay side by side under the sky. “No,” he repeated, “he must not die here.” And through all that day and night he watched by Trench’s side the long hard battle between life and death. At one moment it seemed that the three years of the House of Stone must win the victory, at another that Trench’s strong constitution and wiry frame would get the better of the three years.
For that night, at all events, they did, and the struggle was prolonged. The dangerous seventh day was passed. Even Ibrahim began to gain hope; and on the thirteenth day Trench slept and did not ramble during his sleep, and when he waked it was with a clear head. He found himself alone, and so swathed in camel-cloths that he could not stir; but the heat of the day was past, and the shadow of the House of Stone lay black upon the sand of the zeriba. He had not any wish to stir, and he lay wondering idly how long he had been ill. While he wondered he heard the shouts of the gaolers, the cries of the prisoners outside the zeriba and in the direction of the river. The gate was opened, and the prisoners flocked in. Feversham was among them, and he walked straight to Trench’s corner.
“Thank God!” he cried. “I would not have left you, but I was compelled. We have been unloading boats all day.” And he dropped in fatigue by Trench’s side.
“How long have I lain ill?” asked Trench.
“Thirteen days.”
“It will be a month before I can travel. You must go, Feversham. You must leave me here, and go while you still can. Perhaps when you come to Assouan you can do something for me. I could not move at present. You will go tomorrow?”
“No, I should not go without you in any case,” answered Feversham. “As it is, it is too late.”
“Too late?” Trench repeated. He took in the meaning of the words but slowly; he was almost reluctant to be disturbed by their mere sound; he wished just to lie idle for a long time in the cool of the sunset. But gradually the import of what Feversham had said forced itself into his mind.
“Too late? Then the man in the blue gown has gone?”
“Yes. He spoke to me yesterday by the river. The camel men would wait no longer. They were afraid of detection, and meant to return whether we went with them or not.”
“You should have gone with them,” said Trench. For himself he did not at that moment care whether he was to live in the prison all his life, so long as he was allowed quietly to lie where he was for a long time; and it was without any expression of despair that he
