hours we had improvised a rough, woven-grass hammock as
an ambulance couch, had engaged our bearers, and had got Sebastian under
way for the camp by the river.

When I arrived at our tents, I found Hilda had prepared everything for
our patient with her usual cleverness. Not only had she got a bed ready
for Sebastian, who was now almost insensible, but she had even cooked
some arrowroot from our stores beforehand, so that he might have a
little food, with a dash of brandy in it, to recover him after the
fatigue of the journey down the mountain. By the time we had laid him
out on a mattress in a cool tent, with the fresh air blowing about him,
and had made him eat the meal prepared for him, he really began to look
comparatively comfortable.

Lady Meadowcroft was now our chief trouble. We did not dare to tell her
it was really plague; but she had got near enough back to civilisation
to have recovered her faculty for profuse grumbling; and the idea of the
delay that Sebastian would cause us drove her wild with annoyance. "Only
two days off from Ivor," she cried, "and that comfortable bungalow! And
now to think we must stop here in the woods a week or ten days for this
horrid old Professor! Why can't he get worse at once and die like a
gentleman? But, there! with YOU to nurse him, Hilda, he'll never get
worse. He couldn't die if he tried. He'll linger on and on for weeks and
weeks through a beastly convalescence!"

"Hubert," Hilda said to me, when we were alone once more; "we mustn't
keep her here. She will be a hindrance, not a help. One way or another
we must manage to get rid of her."

"How can we?" I asked. "We can't turn her loose upon the mountain roads
with a Nepaulese escort. She isn't fit for it. She would be frantic with
terror."

"I've thought of that, and I see only one thing possible. I must go on
with her myself as fast as we can push to Sir Ivor's place, and then
return to help you nurse the Professor."

I saw she was right. It was the sole plan open to us. And I had no fear
of letting Hilda go off alone with Lady Meadowcroft and the bearers. She
was a host in herself, and could manage a party of native servants at
least as well as I could.

So Hilda went, and came back again. Meanwhile, I took charge of the
nursing of Sebastian. Fortunately, I had brought with me a good stock
of jungle-medicines in my little travelling-case, including plenty of
quinine; and under my careful treatment the Professor pas