“We can't be far from a village now.”
“I feel awful.
Wouldn't it be better to wait a day till I am perfectly fit again.”
“It's no good waiting.
We've got to get on. D'you think you can manage to get into the canoe?”
Dr. Messinger knew that Tony was in for a long bout.
For the first few hours of that day Tony lay limp in the bows.
They had shifted the stores so that he could lie full length.
Then the fever came on again and his teeth chattered. He sat up and crouched with his head in his knees, shaking all over; only his forehead and cheeks were burning hot under the noon sun.
There was still no sign of a village.
It was late in the afternoon when he first saw Brenda.
For some time he had been staring intently at the odd shape amidships where the stores had been piled; then he realized that it was a human being.
“So the Indians came back?” he said.
“Yes.” “I knew they would. Silly of them to be scared by a toy. I suppose the others are following.” “Yes, I expect so. Try and sit still.”
“Damned fool, being frightened of a toy,” Tony said derisively to the woman amidships.
Then he saw that it was Brenda.
“I'm sorry,” he said.
“I didn't see it was you.
You wouldn't be frightened of a toy.”
But she did not answer him.
She sat as she used often to sit when she came back from London, huddled over her bowl of bread and milk.
Dr. Messinger steered the boat in to the side.
They nearly capsized as he helped Tony out.
Brenda got ashore without assistance.
She stepped out in her delicate, competent way, keeping the balance of the boat.
“That's what poise means,” said Tony.
“D'you know I once saw a questionnaire that people had to fill in when they applied for a job in an American firm, and one of the things they had to answer was `Have you poise?' ”
Brenda was at the top of the bank waiting for him.
“What was so absurd about the question was that they had only the applicant's word for it,” he explained laboriously. “I mean — is it a sign of poise to think you have it.”
“Just sit quiet here while I sling your hammock.”
“Yes, I'll sit here with Brenda.
I am so glad she could come.
She must have caught the three-eighteen.”
She was with him all that night and all the next day.
He talked to her ceaselessly but her replies were rare and enigmatic.
On the succeeding evening he had another fit of sweating.
Dr. Messinger kept a large fire burning by the hammock and wrapped Tony in his own blanket.
An hour before dawn Tony fell asleep and when he awoke Brenda had gone.
“You're down to normal again.”
“Thank God.
I've been pretty ill, haven't I?
I can't remember much.”
Dr. Messinger had made something of a camp.
He had chopped a square clear of undergrowth, the size of a small room.
Their two hammocks hung on opposite sides of it.
The stores were all ashore, arranged in an orderly pile on the tarpaulin.
“How d'you feel?”
“Grand,” said Tony, but when he got out of his hammock he found he could not stand without help.
“Of course, I haven't eaten anything.
I expect it will be a day or two before I'm really well.”