The West African sun poured down, and the heat was intense.
John Segrave continued to moan.
"I can't find it.
I can't find it."
The little English doctor with the red head and the tremendous jaw scowled down upon his patient in that bullying manner which he had made his own.
"He's always saying that.
What does he mean?"
"He speaks, I think, of a house, monsieur." The soft-voiced Sister of Charity from the Roman Catholic Mission spoke with her gentle detachment, as she too looked down on the stricken man.
"A house, eh? Well, he's got to get it out of his head, or we shan't pull him through. It's on his mind.
Segrave!
Segrave!"
The wandering attention was fixed.
The eyes rested with recognition on the doctor's face.
"Look here, you're going to pull through.
I'm going to pull you through. But you've got to stop worrying about this house.
It can't run away, you know.
So don't bother about looking for it now."
"All right." He seemed obedient.
"I suppose it can't very well run away if it's never been there at all."
"Of course not!" The doctor laughed his cheery laugh.
"Now you'll be all right in no time."
And with a boisterous bluntness of manner he took his departure. Segrave lay thinking.
The fever had abated for the moment, and he could think clearly and lucidly.
He must find that House.
For ten years he had dreaded finding it - the thought that he might come upon it unawares had been his greatest terror.
And then, he remembered, when his fears were quite lulled to rest, one day it had found him.
He recalled clearly his first haunting terror, and then his sudden, his exquisite, relief. For, after all, the House was empty! Quite empty and exquisitely peaceful. It was as he remembered it ten years before. He had not forgotten.
There was a huge black furniture van moving slowly away from the House.
The last tenant, of course, moving out with his goods.
He went up to the men in charge of the van and spoke to them.
There was something rather sinister about that van, it was so very black.
The horses were black, too, with freely flowing manes and tails, and the men all wore black clothes and gloves. It all reminded him of something else, something that he couldn't remember.
Yes, he had been quite right.
The last tenant was moving out, as his lease was up. The House was to stand empty for the present, until the owner came back from abroad.
And waking, he had been full of the peaceful beauty of the empty House.
A month after that, he had received a letter from Maisie (she wrote to him perseveringly, once a month). In it she told him that Allegra Kerr had died in the same home as her mother, and wasn't it dreadfully sad? Though of course a merciful release.
It had really been very odd indeed. Coming after his dream like that.
He didn't quite understand it all. But it was odd.
And the worst of it was that he'd never been able to find the House since.
Somehow, he'd forgotten the way.
The fever began to take hold of him once more. He tossed restlessly.
Of course, he'd forgotten, the House was on high ground!
He must climb to get there. But it was hot work climbing cliffs - dreadfully hot.
Up, up, up - Oh! he had slipped! He must start again from the bottom.
Up, up, up - days passed, weeks - he wasn't sure that years didn't go by! And he was still climbing.
Once he heard the doctor's voice. But he couldn't stop climbing to listen.
Besides the doctor would tell him to leave off looking for the House. He thought it was an ordinary house. He didn't know.
He remembered suddenly that he must be calm, very calm. You couldn't find the House unless you were very calm.
It was no use looking for the House in a hurry, or being excited.
If he could only keep calm!