The vicomte glanced significantly at Victor.
"He . . . The Chevalier has just passed through an extraordinary
mental strain," Victor stammered.
"Of what nature?" asked Nicot.
"Never mind what nature, Lieutenant," interrupted the vicomte. "It is
enough that he has brain fever. The question is, can you bring him
around?"
Nicot eyed his patient critically. "It is splendid flesh, but he has
been on a long debauch. I'll fetch my case and bleed him a bit."
"Poor lad!" said Victor. "God knows, he has been through enough
already. What if he should die?"
"Would he not prefer it so?" the vicomte asked. "Were I in his place I
should consider death a blessing in disguise. But do not worry; he
will pull out of it, if only for a day, in order to run his sword
through that fool of a D'Hérouville. The Chevalier always keeps his
engagements. I will leave you now. I will call in the morning."
For two weeks the Chevalier's mind was without active thought or sense
of time. It was as if two weeks had been plucked from his allotment
without his knowledge or consent. Many a night Victor and Breton were
compelled to use force to hold the sick man on his mattress. He
horrified the nuns at evening prayer by shouting for wine, calling the
main at dice, or singing a camp song. At other times his laughter
broke the quiet of midnight or the stillness of dawn. But never in all
his ravings did he mention the marquis or the tragedy of the last rout.
Some secret consciousness locked his lips. Sometimes Brother Jacques
entered the berthroom and applied cold cloths, and rarely the young
priest failed to quiet the patient. Often Victor came in softly to
find the Chevalier sleeping that restless sleep of the fever-bound and
the priest, a hand propping his chin, lost in reverie. One night
Victor had been up with the Chevalier. The berthroom was close and
stifling. He left the invalid in Breton's care and sought the deck for
a breath of air, cold and damp though it was. Glancing up, he saw
Brother Jacques pacing the poop-deck, his hands clasped behind him, his
head bent forward, absorbed in thought. Victor wondered about this
priest. A mystery enveloped his beauty, his uncommunicativeness.
Presently the Jesuit caught sight of the dim, half-recognizable face
below.
"The Chevalier improves?" he asked.
"His mind has just cleared itself of the fever's fog, thank God!" cried
Victor, heartily.
"He will live, then," replied Brother Jacques, sadly; and continued his
pacing. After a few moments Victor went below again, and the priest
mused aloud: "Yes, he will live; misfortune and misery are long-lived."
All about him rolled the smooth waters, touched faintly with the first
pallor of dawn.
On the sixteenth of April the Chevalier was declared strong enough to
be carried up to the deck, where he was laid on a cot, his head propped
with pillows in a manner such as to prevent the rise and fall of the
ship from disturbing him. O the warmth and glory of that spring
sunshine! It flooded his weak, emaciated frame with a soothing heat, a
sense of gladness, peace, calm. As the beams draw water from the
rivers to the heavens, so they drew forth the fever-poison from his
veins and cast it to the cleansing winds. He was aware of no desire
save that of lying there in the sun; of watching the clouds part, join,
and dissolve, only to form again, when the port rose; of measuring the
bright horizon when the port sank. From time to time he held up his
white hands and let the sun incarnadine them. He spoke to no one,
though when Victor sat beside him he smiled. On the second day he
feebly expressed a desire for some one to read to him.