Instead of sleeping for an hour, he slept far into the night; and spent the rest of it in misery between bouts of shivering and of intolerable heat. His throat was on fire, to quench it he coughed, and already his cough hurt queerly. In the morning the man was ill enough to know that he was going to be worse. He took characteristic measures while he could. It was a fine instinct which had inspired him to economise his coal; now was the time when that little hoard might save his life. But he had only one scuttle, and for the moment felt baffled; then he dried his bath, and put the coals in that, thus eventually getting them to the study in one load. These exertions hurt Carlton like his cough. In both cases it was as though his body had been transfixed. His head swam with the pain. Yet next moment he was reeling back for wood; and not less than ten infernal minutes did he spend on such errands, a furious fever alone sustaining him. It was constructive suicide, yet not to have these things was certain death. Now it was all the alcohol in the house, in a bottle that had lasted nearly a year; now a basin of eggs, of which he had always a fair store indoors; now pail upon pail of water for his kettle. Carlton had been a great visitor of the sick, and seen many a death from the disease he was preparing to resist. He had therefore a rough idea of what to do for himself; he was only doubtful as to how long he might be able to do anything at all. The lightest breath had now become a pang. Already he was alarmingly ill, and must inevitably grow much worse. But he did not intend to die. He trusted the constitution of a lean and hardy race, and he trusted his own nerve. At last the fire was alight, a full kettle mounted, and the spout trained upon the pillow, the bed itself being drawn up close to the fire. Under the bed was the bath full of coals, and within as easy reach the eggs, the whisky, a breakfast-cup, and the pails of water. But even now the sick man was not in his bed; he was lying in a heap upon the floor, where he had fallen the moment he could afford to faint. On recovering he shook off half his clothes, crawled between the blankets, and beat up an egg with whisky. This was all he took that day. And there he lay, breathing needles and coughing daggers until he slept. "I'm not going to die. They shan't get rid of me like that. I don't die like a rat in his hole!"