CHAPTER XXI.

JULIAN FEELS STRANGE.

A fortnight had elapsed, it has been written, since the meeting between Beatrix and Julian on the palm-clad knoll, and during that time the latter had found himself left very much to his own resources by Sebastian. Indeed, Julian was never quite able to make out what became of his "relative" during the day, although at night, when they sat as usual on the veranda, Sebastian generally explained matters by saying that he had been absent at one place or another on business, the "business" consisting of trafficking with other settlers for the sale or purchase of the productions of the various estates. As, however, few people ever came to Desolada, and none as "visitors" in the ordinary sense of the word, Julian had no opportunity of discovering by outside conversation whether the other's statements were accurate or not. Still, as he said to himself, Sebastian's pursuits were no concern whatever of his, and at any rate the latter's absence left him free to do whatever he chose with his own time. To shoot curassows, wild turkeys, and sometimes monkeys, or, at least, to appear to go out shooting them; though, as often as not, the expedition ended at All Pines, to which place Julian made his way every other day to post a letter to Beatrix.

Now, after a fortnight had been spent in this manner, during the whole of which period he had not set his eyes on Madame Carmaux, who still kept her room and was reported to be suffering from a bilious fever, the two men sat upon the veranda of the lower floor after the evening meal had been concluded, both of them having their pipes in their mouths. While, close to Sebastian's hand, was a large tumbler which contained a very good modicum of Bourbon whisky, slightly dashed with water.

"You don't drink at all now," that gentleman said to his cousin, as he always called him. "Don't you like the stuff, or what? If that's what it is, I can get something else, you know, from Belize."

"No," Julian replied, "that is not what it is. But of late, for a week or so now, I have not been feeling well, and perhaps abstinence from that is the best thing," and he nodded his head towards where the Bourbon whisky bottle stood.

"I told you so," Sebastian exclaimed; "only you wouldn't believe me. You were sure to feel seedy sooner or later. Every one does at first, when they come to this precious colony."

"I ought to be pretty well climate-hardened all the same," Julian remarked, "after the places I've been in. Burmah isn't considered quite the sweetest thing in the way of health resorts, yet I got through that all right."

"I hope you are not going to have a fever or anything wrong with your liver. Those are the things people suffer from here, intermittent and remittent fevers especially. I must give you some medicine."

"No, thanks," Julian replied; "I think I can do very well without it at present. Besides, the time has come for me to bring my visit to a close, you know. You have been very kind and hospitable, but there is such a thing as overstaying one's welcome."

To his momentary astonishment, since he quite expected that Sebastian was looking forward to his departure with considerable eagerness and was extremely desirous of seeing the last of him, this announcement was not received at all as he expected. In actual truth, Julian had imagined that his decision would be accepted with the faintest of protests which a host could make, while, instead, he perceived that Sebastian was absolutely overcome with something that, if not dismay, was very like it. His face fell, as the light of the lamp (round which countless moths buzzed and circled in the sickly night air) testified plainly, and he uttered an exclamation that was one of unfeigned disappointment, if not regret.

"Oh!" he said, "but I can't allow that. I can't, indeed. Going away because you feel queer. Nonsense, man! You'll be all right in a day or so. And to go away after a visit of two or three weeks only! Why! when people come such a journey as you have done from England to here, we expect them to stop six months."

"That in any case would be impossible. My leave of absence only covers that space of time, and cannot be exceeded. But," Julian continued, "don't think, all the same, that I am afraid of fever or anything of that sort. That wouldn't frighten me away."

"I can't see what you came for, then. What the deuce," he said, speaking roughly now as though his temper was rising, "could have brought you to Honduras if you weren't going to stay above a month in the place?"

"I wanted to see the place where my father lived," the other replied, and as he did so he watched Sebastian's features carefully. For although, of course, he was supposed to be the son of George Ritherdon who had lived at Desolada once, he thought it most probable that this remark might cause his cousin some disturbance.

Whether it did so or not, he could, however, scarcely tell, since, as he made it, Sebastian, who was relighting his pipe with a match, let the latter fall, and instantly leant forward to pick it up again.

"Oh!" he exclaimed, when he had done so, "of course, if you only wanted to do that, two or three weeks are long enough. Yet, I must say, I think it is an uncommon short stay. However, I suppose even now you don't mean to go off in a wonderful hurry?"

"To-day," said Julian, "is Wednesday. Suppose, as you are so kind, that we fix next Monday for my departure."

"Next Monday. Next Monday," and by the movement of Sebastian's lips, the other could see that he was making some kind of calculation. "Next Monday. Four clear days. Ah!" and his face brightened very much as he spoke. "Well! that's something, isn't it? Four clear days."

Upstairs, when Julian had reached his room, he found himself meditating upon why Sebastian should have seemed so undoubtedly pleased at the knowledge that he was going to stay for another "four clear days."

"We haven't seen such a wonderful lot of each other," he reflected, "except for an hour or so after supper; and as I have spent my time uselessly in mooning about this place and the neighbourhood, he can't suppose that it's very lively for me. Especially as--as there have been risks."

"As--as--as there have been--risks," he repeated a few moments afterwards. Then, while still he sat on in his chair, gazing, as he recognised, vaguely out of the window, he noticed that his mind seemed to have got into a dull, sodden state--that it was not active.

"As--there--have--been risks," he repeated once more. And now he pushed his chair on one side as he rose from it, exclaiming:

"This won't do. There's something wrong with me. As--there--have--no!--no! I don't want to keep on repeating this phrase over and over again. What is the matter with me? _Have_ I got a fever?"

Thinking this, though as he did so he recognised that his head was by no means clear and that he felt dull and heavy, as a man might do who had not slept for some nights, he thought, too, that it would be best for him to go to bed. Doubtless his liver was affected by the climate; doubtless, also, he would be well enough in the morning.

"There is," he said to himself, "a chemist's in the village of All Pines--I will let him to give me a draught in the morning. I wonder if Zara ever takes a draught--I--I--mean Beatrix. What rot I am talking!" he murmured to himself, "and now, to add to other things the lamp is going out."

Whereon he made a step towards where the lamp stood on the table, and turning up the wicks gently saw that, in a moment, the flames were leaping up the glass chimney and blackening it.

"I thought it was going out," he said to himself, turning the wicks down again rapidly; "I seem to be getting blind too. There is no doubt that I have got a fever. Let me see."

As he spoke he put his hand into his trousers pocket to draw out his keys, it being his intention to open his Gladstone bag and get out a little medicine casket he always carried with him when out of England, and especially when in tropical places; and, in doing so, he leant his head a little to the side that the pocket was on, his chin drooping somewhat towards the lapel of his white jacket.

"I suppose," he muttered, "that my sense of smell's affected too, now. Or else--jacket's getting--some beastly old--old--old tropical smell that clings to everything--in--in such countries. Never mind. Here's keys."

He drew them forth, regarding the bunch with a stare as though it was something he was unacquainted with, and then, instead of putting into the lock of the bag the long slim key which is usual, he endeavoured to insert a large one that really belonged to a trunk he had left behind at the shipping office in Belize as not being wanted.

Reflection served, however, to call to his mind that this key was not very likely to open the bag, and at last, after giving an inane smile at the mistake, he succeeded in his endeavour and was able to get out the contents, and to withdraw the little medicine casket.

"Quinine," he said, spelling the word letter by letter as he held the phial under the lamp. "Quinine. That's it. Don't let's make a mistake. Q-u-i-n-i-n-e. That's all right. Can't go wrong now."

By the aid of the contents of the water-bottle and his glass he was enabled to swallow two quinine pills of two grains each, and then he resolved--in a hazy, uncertain kind of way--to go to bed. Whereon, slowly he divested himself of his clothes and, in a mechanical manner, threw back the mosquito curtains. But, whatever might be the matter with him, and however clouded his intellect might be, he was not yet so dense as to forget the strange occupant of that bed which he had once before discovered there.

"Beatrix said," he muttered, "that coral snake kills in an hour. I don't want to die in an hour. Let's see if we've got another guest here to-night."

And, as he had done every night since he had returned to Desolada, he thoroughly explored the bed, doing so, however, on this occasion in a lethargic, heavy manner which caused him to be some considerable time about it.

"Turn to the left to unscrew," he said to himself, recalling some old schoolboy phrase as he stood now by the lamp ready to extinguish it, "to the right to screw. Same, I suppose, to turn up and down. Oh! the revolver. Where's that? May as well have it handy." Whereupon he went over to where he had hung up his jacket and removed the weapon from the inside pocket.

"A nasty smell these tropical places have," he muttered as he did so. "There's the smell of India--no one ever forgets that--and also the smell of Africa. Well! strikes me Honduras can go one better than either of them."

Then he got into bed.

Dizzy, stupefied as he felt, however, it did not seem as if his stupefaction or semi-delirium, or whatever it was which had overcome him, was likely to plunge him into a heavy, dull sleep. Instead, he found himself lying there with his eyes wide open, and, although his brain felt like a lump of lead, while there was a weight at his forehead as if something were pressing on it, he was conscious that one of his senses was very acute--namely, the sense of smell. Either that, or else some very peculiar phase in the fever which he was experiencing, was causing a strange sense of disgust in his nostrils.

"This bed smells just like a temple I went into in Burmah once," he thought to himself. "What the deuce is the matter with me--or it? Anyhow, I can't stand it." And, determined not to endure the unpleasantness any longer, he got up from the bed, while wrapping himself in the dark coverlet he went over to an old rickety sofa that ran along the opposite side of the room and lay down upon it.

And here, at least, the odour was not apparent. The old horsehair bolster and pillow did emit, it is true, the peculiar stuffy flavour which such things will do even in temperate climates; but beyond that nothing else. The acrid, loathsome odour which he had smelt for the first time when he leant his head slightly as he felt for his keys, and which he had perceived in a far more intensified form when he lay down in the bed, was not at all apparent now. It seemed as if he was, at last, likely to fall asleep.