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. CHAPTER V. CHANCE IN PERNAMBUCO While Hicks tossed about in his fever dreams, and Hemming shook his command into form, away on the coast, in the city of Pernambuco, unusual things were shaping. From the south, coastwise from Bahia, came Bertram St. Ives O'Rourke. This was chance, pure and simple, for he had no idea of Hemming's whereabouts. From New York, on the mail-steamer, came a man called Cuddlehead, and took up his abode in a narrow hotel near the waterfront. He arrived in the city only an hour behind O'Rourke. He was artfully attired in yachting garb, and had been king-passenger on the boat, where his English accent had been greatly admired, and his predilection for card-playing had been bountifully rewarded. In fact, when he went ashore with his meagre baggage, he left behind at least one mourning maiden heart and three empty pockets.