CHAPTER IV.

THE THING THAT HAPPENED

Hicks came along the homeward road at dusk. Lights were glowing above the strong walls and behind the straight trunks of the palms. A mist that one might smell lay along the course of the river. Hicks rode heavily and with the air of one utterly oblivious to his surroundings. But at the gateway of the officers' mess he looked up. Captain Santosa was in the garden, a vision of white and gold and dazzling smile. He hurried to the gate.

"Ah, my dear Hicks, you are in time for our small cocktails, and then dinner. But for this riding so hard, I can call you nothing but a fool."

"Thanks very much," replied the American, dismounting slowly, "and as to what you call me, old man, I'm not at all particular." The woebegone expression of his plump face was almost ludicrous.

Santosa whistled, and presently an orderly came and took Valentine's horse. The two entered the building arm in arm, and the secretary swayed as he walked.

Five or six of the native officers were already in the mess-room, swallowing mild swizzles, and talking quietly. They greeted Hicks affectionately.

"This man," said Santosa, "had his horse looking like a shaving-brush, and I know nothing in English so suitable to call him as this," and he swore vigorously in Portuguese.

"Stow that rot," said Hicks, "can't you see I'm fit as a fiddle; and for Heaven's sake move some liquor my way, will you?" His request was speedily complied with, and he helped himself recklessly from the big decanter.

The dinner was long and hot, and Valentine Hicks, forgetting utterly his Harvard manner, dropped his head on the table, between his claret-glass and coffee-cup, and dreamed beastly dreams. The swarthy Brazilians talked and smoked, and sent away the decanters to be refilled. The stifling air held the tobacco smoke above the table. The cotton-clad servants moved on noiseless feet.

"These Americans,--dear heaven," spoke a fat major, softly.

"I am fond of Hicks," said Santosa, laying his hand on the youth's unconscious shoulder. A slim lieutenant, who had held a commission in a Brazilian regiment stationed in Rio, looked at the captain.

"The Americans are harmless," he said. "They mind their own business,--or better still, they let us mind it for them. The President--bah! And our dear Valentine. If he gets enough to eat, and clothes cut in the English way, and some one to listen to his little stories of how he used to play golf at Harvard, he is content. But this Englishman,--this Señor Hemming,--he is quite different."

"Did not you at one time play golf?" asked Santosa, calmly.

"Three times, in Florida," replied the lieutenant, "and with me played a lady, who talked at her ease and broke two clubs in one morning. She was of a fashionable convent named Smith, but this did not deter her from the free expression of her thoughts."

"Stir up Señor Hicks, that we may hear two fools at the same time," said the colonel.

"Take my word for it, colonel, that Valentine is not a fool," said Santosa, lightly. "He is very young."

"Have you nothing to say for me?" asked the slim lieutenant, good-naturedly.

"You know what I think of you all," replied Santosa, without heat. The conversation was carried on in Portuguese, and now ran into angry surmises as to the President's reason for placing Hemming in command.

It was close upon midnight when Hicks awoke. He straightened himself in his chair and blinked at Santosa, who alone, of the whole mess, remained at table.

"You have had a little nap," said the Brazilian.

Hicks looked at him for awhile in silence. Then he got to his feet, and leaned heavily on the table.

"I'll walk home, old tea-cosey. Tell your nigger to give my gee something to eat, will you?"

"You do not look well, my dear Valentine. You had better stay here until morning," said Santosa.

Hicks swore, and then begged the other's pardon.

"Am I drunk, old chap? Do I look that way?" he asked.

Captain Santosa laughed. "You look like a man with a grudge against some one," he answered. "Perhaps you have a touch of fever, otherwise I know you would have good taste enough to conceal the grudge. A gentleman suffers--and smiles."

It was past two o'clock in the morning, and Hemming was lying flat on his back, smoking a cigarette in the dark. He had been writing verses, and letters which he did not intend to mail, until long past midnight. And now he lay wide-eyed on his bed, kept awake by the restless play of his thoughts.

His windows were all open, and he could hear a stirring of wind in the crests of the taller trees. His reveries were disturbed by a stumbling of feet in the room beyond, and suddenly Valentine Hicks stood in the doorway. By the faint light Hemming made out the big, drooping shoulders and the attitude of weariness. He sat up quickly, and pushed his feet into slippers.

"That you, Hicks?" he asked.

"Don't talk to me, you damn traitor!" said Hicks.

Hemming frowned, and tossed his cigarette into the night.

"If you will be so good as to turn on the light, I'll get the quinine," he said.

The secretary laughed.

"Quinine!" he cried; "you fool! I believe an Englishman would recommend some blasted medicine to a man in hell."

"You're not there yet," replied Hemming. He was bending over an open drawer of his desk, feeling about among papers and bottles for the box of pills. Hicks drew something from his pocket and laid it softly on the table.

"Good morning," he said. "I intended to kick up a row but I've changed my mind. Hand over your pills and I'll go to bed."

When he awoke next day, it was only to a foolish delirium. The doctor looked at him, and then at Hemming.

"I suppose you can give it a name," he said.

Hemming nodded.

"I've had it myself," he replied.

The President, followed by his daughter, came into the room. Hicks recognized the girl.

"Marion," he said, and when she bent over him, "something has happened after all."

She looked up at Hemming with a colourless face. Her eyes were brave enough, but the pitiful expression of her mouth touched him with a sudden painful remembrance. During the hours of daylight the doctor and Miss Tetson watched by the bedside, moving silently and speaking in whispers in the darkened room.

The doctor was an Englishman somewhat beyond middle age, with a past well buried. In the streets and on the trail his manner was short almost to rudeness. He often spoke bitterly and lightly of those things which most men love and respect. In the sick-room, be it in the rich man's villa or in the mud hut of the plantation labourer, he spoke softly, and his hands were gentle as a woman's.

Hemming had been working with his little army all day, and, after dining at the mess, he changed and relieved Miss Tetson and the doctor. Before leaving the room, the girl turned to him nervously.

"Did you see Valentine last night?" she asked.

Hemming told her that Hicks had come to his room for quinine.

"Good night, and please take good care of him," she said.

The Englishman screwed his eye-glass into place, and glared at her uneasily. "Hicks is a good sort," he said, "but he is not the kind for this country. Neither are you, Miss Tetson. But it's nuts for me,--this playing soldier at another man's expense."

He paused, and she waited, a little impatiently, for him to go on. "What I wanted to say," he continued, "is that there is one thing that goes harder with a man than yellow fever. I--ah--have experienced both. Hicks is a decent chap," he concluded, lamely.

Miss Tetson smiled and held out her hand.

"If he should want me in the night, please call me. I will not be asleep," she said.

Hemming, for all his rolling, had gathered a good deal of moss in the shape of handiness and out-of-the-way knowledge. Twice during the night he bathed the sick man; with ice and alcohol. Many times he lifted the burning head and held water to the hot lips. Sometimes he talked to him, very low, of the North and the blue sea, and thus brought sleep back to the glowing eyes. The windows were open and the blinds up, and a white moon walked above the gardens.

Just before dawn, Hemming dozed for a few minutes in his chair. He was awakened by some movement, and, opening his eyes, beheld Miss Tetson at the bedside. Hicks was sleeping, with his tired face turned toward the window. The girl touched his forehead tenderly with her lips.

Hemming closed his eyes again, and kept them so until he heard her leave the room,--a few light footsteps and a soft trailing of skirts. Then, in his turn, he bent above the sleeper.

"If this takes you off, old chap, perhaps it will be better," he said.

But in his inmost soul he did not believe this bitter distrust of women that his own brain had built up for him out of memory and weariness.