later he became delirious, and for a week after that hung between life
and death. Well was it for him that his medicine-chest still remained
intact, and that recognizing his own symptoms before his head gave way,
he was able to instruct Jeekie what drugs to give him at the different
stages of the disease.

For the rest his memories of that dreadful illness always remained very
vague. He had visions of Jeekie and of a robed woman whom he knew to be
the Asika, bending over him continually. Also it seemed to him that from
time to time he was talking with Barbara, which even then he knew must
be absurd, for how could they talk across thousands of miles of land and
sea.

At length his mind cleared suddenly, and he awoke as from a nightmare to
find himself lying in the hall or room where he had always been, feeling
quite cool and without pain, but so weak that it was an effort to him to
lift his hand. He stared about him and was astonished to see the white
head of Jeekie rolling uneasily to and fro upon the cushions of another
bed near by.

"Jeekie," he said, "are you ill too, Jeekie?"

At the sound of that voice his retainer started up violently.

"What, Major, you awake?" he said. "Thanks be to all gods, white and
black, yes, and yellow too, for I thought your goose cooked. No, no,
Major, I not ill, only Asika say so. You go to bed, so she make me go
to bed. You get worse, she treat me cruel; you seem better, she stuff me
with food till I burst. All because you tell her that you and I die same
day. Oh, Lord! poor Jeekie think his end very near just now, for he know