lying before him on the coverlet to know that they were his--they were
so wasted and yellow. He turned his eyes, and through the white gauze of
the mosquito-bar saw, for an instant, a strange and beautiful young
face; but the lids fell over his eyes, and when he raised them again the
blue-turbaned black nurse was tucking the covering about his feet.

"Sister!"

No answer.

"Where is my mother?"

The negress shook her head.

He was too weak to speak again, but asked with his eyes so persistently,
and so pleadingly, that by and by she gave him an audible answer. He
tried hard to understand it, but could not, it being in these words:

"_Li pa' oulé vini 'ci--li pas capabe_."

Thrice a day, for three days more, came a little man with a large head
surrounded by short, red curls and with small freckles in a fine skin,
and sat down by the bed with a word of good cheer and the air of a
commander. At length they had something like an extended conversation.

"So you concluded not to die, eh? Yes, I'm the doctor--Doctor Keene. A
young lady? What young lady? No, sir, there has been no young lady here.
You're mistaken. Vagary of your fever. There has been no one here but
this black girl and me. No, my dear fellow, your father and mother can't
see you yet; you don't want them to catch the fever, do you? Good-bye.