It Is Never Too Late to Mend Part 92

"I hope so, Jacky," said George very gravely, "thank you, all the same.

Jacky, I haven't been not to say dry for the last ten days with me washing the sheep, and I have caught a terrible chill--a chill like death; and, Jacky, I have tried too much--I have abused my strength. I am a very strong man as men go, and so was my father; but he abused his strength--and he was took just as I am took now, and in a week he was dead. I have worked hard ever since I came here, but since Abner left me at the pinch it hasn't been man's work, Jacky; it has been a wrestling-match from dawn to dark. No man could go on so and not break down; but I wanted so to save the poor sheep. Well, the sheep are saved; but--"

When Jacky's infusion was ready he made George take it and then lie down. Unfortunately the attack was too violent to yield to this simple remedy. Fever was upon George Fielding--fever in his giant shape; not as he creeps over the weak, but as he rushes on the strong. George had never a headache in his life before. Fever found him full of blood and turned it all to fire. He tossed--he raged--and forty-eight hours after his first seizure the strong man lay weak as a child, except during those paroxysms of delirium which robbed him of his reason while they lasted, and of his strength when they retired.

On the fourth day---after a raging paroxysm--he became suddenly calm, and looking up saw Jacky seated at some little distance, his bright eye fixed upon him.

"You better now?" inquired he, with even more than his usual gentleness of tone. "You not talk stupid things any more?"

"What, Jacky, are you watching me?" said the sick man. "Now I call that very kind of you. Jacky, I am not the man I was--we are cut down in a day like the ripe gra.s.s. How long is it since I was took ill?"

"One, one, one, and one more day."

"Ay! Ay! My father lasted till the fifth day, and then--Jacky!"

"Here Jacky! what you want?"

"Go out on the hill and see whether any of the sheep are rubbing themselves."

Jacky went out and soon returned.

"Not see one rub himself."

A faint gleam lighted George's sunken eye. "That is a comfort. I hope I shall be accepted not to have been a bad shepherd, for I may say 'I have given my life for my sheep.' Poor things."

George dozed. Toward evening he awoke, and there was Jacky just where he had seen him last. "I didn't think you had cared so much for me, Jacky, my boy."

"Yes, care very much for you. See, um make beef-water for you a good deal."

And sure enough he had boiled down about forty pounds of beef and filled a huge calabash with the extract, which he set by George's side.

"And why are you so fond of me, Jacky? It isn't on account of my saving your life, for you had forgotten that. What makes you such a friend to me?"

"I tell you. Often I go to tell you before, but many words dat a good deal trouble. One--when you make thunder the bird always die. One--you take a sheep so and hold him up high. Um never see one more white fellow able do dat. One--you make a stone go and hit thing; other white fellow never hit. One--little horse come to you; other white fellow go to horse--horse run away. Little horse run to you, dat because you so good.

One--Carlo fond of you. All day now he come in and go out, and say so (imitating a dog's whimper). He so uncomfortable because you lie down so. One--when you speak to Jacky you not speak big like white fellow, you speak small and like a fiddle--dat please Jacky's ear.

"One--when you look at Jacky always your face make like a hot day when dere no rain--dat please Jacky's eye; and so when Jacky see you stand up one day a good deal high and now lie down--dat makes him uncomfortable; and when he see you red one day and white dis day--dat make him uncomfortable a good deal; and when he see you so beautiful one day and dis day so ugly--dat make him so uncomfortable, he afraid you go away and speak no more good words to Jacky--and dat make Jacky feel a thing inside here (touching his breast), no more can breathe--and want to do like the gin, but don't know how. Oh, dear! don't know how!"

"Poor Jacky! I do wish I had been kinder to you than I have. Oh, I am very short of wind, and my back is very bad!"

"When black fellow bad in um back he always die," said Jacky very gravely.

"Ay," said George quietly. "Jacky, will you do one or two little things for me now?"

"Yes, do um all."

"Give me that little book that I may read it. Thank you. Jacky, this is the book of my religion; and it was given to me by one I love better than all the world. I have disobeyed her--I have thought too little of what is in this book and too much of this world's gain. G.o.d forgive me!

and I think He will, because it was for Susan's sake I was so greedy of gain."

Jacky looked on awestruck as George read the book of his religion. "Open the door, Jacky."

Jacky opened the door; then coming to George's side, he said with an anxious, inquiring look and trembling voice, "Are you going to leave me, George?"

"Yes, Jacky, my boy," said George, "I doubt I am going to leave you. So now thank you and bless you for all kindness. Put your face close down to mine-there--I don't care for your black skin--He who made mine made yours; and I feel we are brothers, and you have been one to me. Good-by, dear, and don't stay here. You can do nothing more for your poor friend George."

Jacky gave a little moan. "Yes, um can do a little more before he go and hide him face where there are a good deal of trees."

Then Jacky went almost on tiptoe, and fetched another calabash full of water and placed it by George's head. Then he went very softly and fetched the heavy iron which he had seen George use in penning sheep, and laid it by George's side; next he went softly and brought George's gun, and laid it gently by George's side down on the ground.

This done he turned to take his last look of the sick man now feebly dozing, the little book in his drooping hand. But as he gazed nature rushed over the poor savage's heart and took it quite by surprise. Even while bending over his white brother to look his last farewell, with a sudden start he turned his back on him, and sinking on his hams he burst out crying and sobbing with a wild and terrible violence.

CHAPTER XLI.

FOR near an hour Jacky sat upon the ground, his face averted from his sick friend, and cried; then suddenly he rose, and without looking at him went out at the door, and turning his face toward the great forests that lay forty miles distant eastward, he ran all the night, and long before dawn was hid in the pathless woods.

A white man feels that grief, when not selfish, is honorable, and unconsciously he nurses such grief more or less; but to simple-minded Jacky grief was merely a subtle pain, and to be got rid of as quickly as possible, like any other pain.

He ran to the vast and distant woods, hoping to leave George's death a long way behind him, and so not see what caused his pain so plain as he saw it just now. It is to be observed that he looked upon George as dead. The taking into his hand of the book of his religion, the kind embrace, the request that the door might be opened, doubtless for the disembodied spirit to pa.s.s out, all these rites were understood by Jacky to imply that the last scene was at hand. Why witness it? it would make him still more uncomfortable. Therefore he ran, and never once looked back, and plunged into the impenetrable gloom of the eastern forests.

The white man had left Fielding to get a richer master. The half-reasoning savage left him to cure his own grief at losing him.

There he lay abandoned in trouble and sickness by all his kind. But one friend never stirred; a single-hearted, single-minded, non-reasoning friend.

Who was this pure-minded friend? A dog.

Carlo loved George. They had lived together, they had sported together, they had slept together side by side on the cold, hard deck of the _Phoenix_, and often they had kept each other warm, sitting crouched together behind a little bank or a fallen tree, with the wind whistling and the rain shooting by their ears.

When day after day George came not out of the house, Carlo was very uneasy. He used to patter in and out all day, and whimper pitifully, and often he sat in the room where George lay and looked toward him and whined. But now when his master was left quite alone his distress and anxiety redoubled; he never went ten yards away from George. He ran in and out moaning and whining, and at last he sat outside the door and lifted up his voice and howled day and night continually. His meaner instincts lay neglected; he ate nothing; his heart was bigger than his belly; he would not leave his friend even to feed himself. And still day and night without cease his pa.s.sionate cry went up to heaven.

What pa.s.sed in that single heart none can tell for certain but his Creator; nor what was uttered in that deplorable cry; love, sorrow, perplexity, dismay--all these perhaps, and something of prayer--for still he lifted his sorrowful face toward heaven as he cried out in sore perplexity, distress, and fear for his poor master--oh! o-o-o-h!

o-o-o-o-h! o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-h!

So we must leave awhile poor, honest, unlucky George, sick of a fever, ten miles from the nearest hut.

Leather-heart has gone from him to be a rich man's hireling.

Shallow-heart has fled to the forest, and is hunting kangaroos with all the inches of his soul.

Single-heart sits fasting from all but grief before the door, and utters heartrending, lamentable cries to earth and heaven.

CHAPTER XLII.

---- JAIL is still a grim and castellated mountain of masonry, but a human heart beats and a human brain throbs inside it now.

Enter without fear of seeing children kill themselves, and bearded men faint like women, or weep like children--horrible sights.

The prisoners no longer crouch and cower past the officers, nor the officers look at them and speak to them as if they were dogs, as they do in most of these places, and used to here.