The doctor told me that it was going to be a long illness, so I telegraphed home for good port wine and all sorts of luxuries, and put two beds on rollers, so as to be able easily to change him from one to the other, and a couch for myself, so that I might sleep when he slept. We had seventy-eight days and nights of it. The tumour had to be cut out, and afterwards it was discovered that the surgeon had not gone deep enough, and it had to be done again. The doctor and the surgeon came twice a day, and they taught me to dress the wound. I was afraid his life would ebb away, but I kept up his strength with good port wine, egg-flips with brandy, cream and fresh eggs, Brand's essences, and something every hour. His brain was so strong that the doctors had very hard work to get him under chloroform--it took forty minutes, and two bottles of chloroform; but when he did go off it was perfect, and on coming to, he said, "Well, when is it going to begin?" "It is all over long ago, Captain Burton," said the doctor; but in point of fact I had to keep his attention engaged, as they were just clearing away the blood and all traces of the operation. He was so brave, he smoked a cigar and drank a soda-and-brandy an hour after the operation. [Sidenote: _Charley Drake's Death_.] It was a curious thing that poor Charley Drake, at the age of twenty-eight, died in Jerusalem on the very day Richard was operated upon. He had caught a severe fever in the malarious valley of the Jordan, living under canvas, in heavy rains. He was only ill three weeks, and had no idea of dying until seven hours before his death. For the first two hours he wept bitterly, and, resigning himself, he constantly said, "Tell my mother I die in the love of Jesus." He _talked_ quite as agnostically as Richard did; but he was a good Protestant at heart, and died a holy death. During the time he was delirious he frequently said to Richard's servant, who remained with him, "Habíb, pitch the tents on Mount Sion; there is such a beautiful place." It was where we had often sat, we three together, and he had said how he should like to be buried there. Richard unfortunately got hold of the letter before I did, and he fell back in a faint with the wound reopened. We had lost a true friend, perhaps a better than we should ever see again, and we felt it bitterly. It was just a year since he left us at Venice. [Sidenote: _Travelling for his Health_.]