Shelled by an Unseen Foe Part 6

"You are English, are you not? Or American?"

Zaidos shook his head. "No, I'm a Greek," he explained. "But I've been in America at school since I was a little chap, and I have had an English room-mate for three years."

"That's it, then," said the nurse. "You must not talk now, however.

You must drink this and sleep if you can. There are a lot of badly hurt men here. _You_ are all right, but pretty well water-soaked and tired out. Try to sleep."

She started on, but Zaidos put out his hand and detained her.

"Just a moment, please," he said, smiling at her in his sunny way. "Is there a fellow here called Velo Kupenol? Tall fellow, thin, and looks a little like me perhaps?"

"Perhaps not again," said the nurse, frowning a little. "Yes, your friend is here. He does not seem to have anything the matter with him, yet he acts like a very sick boy."

"Seems to enjoy poor health?" asked Zaidos, smiling. "Well, I myself can't really blame him. You don't know how very _wet_ we felt! I feel as though I could lie here a week and enjoy these dry sheets."

"You will be very likely to do so whether you enjoy it or not," said the nurse. "Legs do not mend in a day. When your friend thinks he is strong enough, I will suggest his coming to visit you."

She pa.s.sed on, and Zaidos lay staring at the wooden ceiling so near his head.

Round and round and round goes the wheel of fate, thought Zaidos.

He wondered what the next turn would be, and where it would carry him.

He drank from the cup the nurse had given him, and presently dozed off, although his leg pained too much to allow him to get a sound sleep.

He was aroused later by voices near him, and recognized the sound of his cousin's voice. Velo was talking in a rapid, low tone to one of the doctors.

"Looks like a nice boy," said the doctor in Greek.

"Yes, he is," said Velo. "But if he is my cousin, I must say he is one of the most stubborn fellows I have ever known."

"Is that so?" thought Zaidos, keeping his eyes shut tight. He thought there would be no more talk about him, but the doctor went on, "He doesn't look it."

"No," said Velo, "but he is. I thought I would never be able to rescue him from that sinking transport. He went sort of crazy, he was so afraid, and when the order came to jump, he clung to the rail, and refused to move. I had to twist his hands away, and jump with him."

"Well, I do declare!" thought Zaidos. He decided that he had better find out just what sort of a fellow he was supposed to be anyhow.

Velo went on, "When I got him into the water, I had to take him over my shoulder, and swim for dear life to get away from the boat before she went down. We just made it, and at that he clung to me with such a grip that I thought I would have to let go and leave him to his fate."

"Queer how they hang on to one in the water," said the doctor. "It seems strange he does not swim."

"Oh, he swims a little," said Velo. "He _thinks_ he swims well, but it does not amount to much. I got hold of a life belt and buckled it around him, and kept his courage up as well as I could. The fight out there nearly finished him."

"I don't know as I blame him," said the doctor. "It must have been a pretty stiff experience, especially when a shot came your way occasionally."

"Yes, it was exciting," Velo agreed. He spoke with the ease of a man accustomed to worse things. Zaidos wondered how the doctor ever believed it all.

"Well," he said, "I'll have to go on. You can congratulate yourself, young man, on having the courage and patience to stick it out and save the lad. It is a great credit to you and I'm proud to know you." And he turned and walked softly away between the white bunks.

Velo remained standing near Zaidos. Presently he came over and looked down at his cousin. Zaidos opened one eye and looked up. The other he kept tightly closed. It gave him a teasing, guying expression of countenance which he had many times found very irritating at school.

"Dear, _dear_ Velo," he said with a simper, "how can I _ever_ thank you for saving my life?"

CHAPTER V

INTO SERVICE

Zaidos' method of punishing Velo for the yarn he had told the doctor took the form of an exaggerated grat.i.tude. Being perfectly independent of praise himself, Zaidos could not understand why on earth Velo should have taken the trouble to misrepresent things so. As far as Zaidos could see, there was nothing to be gained by it. The incident was past and did not concern the doctor in any way. Zaidos, who did not know his cousin at all, had yet to learn that his was one of the natures that are incapable of any n.o.ble effort, yet which feed on praise. With Velo everything was personal. If he pa.s.sed a beautiful woman driving in the park, he thought instantly, "Now if that horse should run away, and I should leap out and grasp the animal by the head, wouldn't that be fine? I would doubtless be dashed to the pavement a few times, but what of that?" He could almost hear the lovely lady, pale and shaken, as she thanked her n.o.ble preserver and pressed into his hand a ring of immense value. The lovely lady was always a Countess at least, and frequently a Princess.

Velo imagined drowning accidents, and fires where he dashed the firemen aside, and made thrilling rescues of other lovely ladies who were seen hanging out of high windows. Velo himself always came out unhurt and with his clothes nicely brushed and in order. Sometimes he imagined a slight, _very_ slight cut on his forehead, which had to be becomingly bandaged, but that was always the extent of his injuries. Velo liked to imagine bandits, too; big, ferocious fellows whom he outwitted, or choked into insensibility in single combat. At a moving-picture show, he always sat in a delicious dream, admiring his own exploits as the pictures flashed on the screen.

Thus it was perfectly natural and simple for him to take the adventure of the previous day, and twist it to his own glorification.

To Zaidos this would have been such an impossibility that he simply could not have understood it at all, even if someone had explained Velo's way of looking at things.

To Zaidos the only possible or natural way to look at things was to do whatever came up for a fellow _to_ do, and to do it as soon and as well as he possibly could. Not knowing Velo, he did not dream that he was in the habit of glorifying himself on every possible occasion. If he had, he would have pressed a little harder. As it was, he drove Velo into a cold fury by his sweet, humble grat.i.tude.

"Oh, Velo," he would say, "whenever I think how you wrenched my hands from the rail, and forced me into the water, and swam with me to safety, I don't see how I will _ever_ thank you!"

Then he would get out the square of antiseptic gauze the nurse had given him for a handkerchief and cry into its folds as loudly as he dared.

Zaidos had to take medicine to keep down fever, so there were two bottles on the tiny table beside him. He had to take a dose every hour. Once he woke up, and took the bottle in his hand and started to pour it out just as the nurse came past. She gave a look at the bottle, smothered a cry, and s.n.a.t.c.hed it from Zaidos' hand. She was pale.

"How--where--when did you get that?" she stammered.

"What's the matter with it?" asked Zaidos. "Isn't it my medicine?

I've been taking it all the time, haven't I?"

The nurse had regained her self-control and even smiled.

"Have you been asleep this morning?" she asked, as though the medicine no longer interested her.

"Just woke up," said Zaidos. "I had a fine nap."

"That's good," said the nurse and walked away, taking the bottle in her hand.

But five minutes later, when she reported to the doctor, her manner was not so calm.

"What do you think?" she cried, closing the door of the tiny laboratory where he was working with an a.s.sistant. "What can this mean? This bottle was on young Zaidos' table instead of the medicine I left there!"

The doctor scanned the label.

"Bichloride of mercury," he said. "Why, that's queer!" He pondered.

"What do you make of it?"

"I can't make a _guess_ even," said the nurse. "There is no one out there who is delirious, and Zaidos could not get up on that broken leg in his sleep, if he wanted to. If it was not such a crazy idea, I should say someone had a reason for getting rid of Zaidos, but he is very popular, and his cousin thinks the world of him."

The incident was mysterious as well as serious. They discussed it and made guesses which flew wide of the mark. The doctor quietly ordered a change of medicine for Zaidos, and removing the bottles on his table, gave the nurse instructions to give him the doses herself. She did so, without rousing any suspicion in Zaidos' open and confident mind, _but Velo Kupenol noticed the change_.