“Captain Seelencooper,” said the Doctor, “I do not meddle with your
department in the hospital; my advice to you is, not to trouble yourself
with mine. I suppose, as I have a commission in the service, and have
besides a regular diploma as a physician, I know when my patient is
light-headed or otherwise. So do you let the man be carefully looked
after, at your peril.”
Thus saying, he left the hospital, but not till, under pretext of again
consulting the pulse, he pressed the patient's hand, as if to assure him
once more of his exertions for his liberation.
“My eyes!” muttered Seelencooper, “this cockerel crows gallant, to
come from a Scotch roost; but I would know well enough how to fetch the
youngster off the perch, if it were not for the cure he has done on the
General's pickaninies.”
Enough of this fell on Richard's ear to suggest hopes of deliverance,
which were increased when he was shortly afterwards removed to a
separate ward, a place much more decent in appearance, and inhabited
only by two patients, who seemed petty officers. Although sensible that
he had no illness, save that weakness which succeeds violent agitation,
he deemed it wisest to suffer himself still to be treated as a patient,
in consideration that he should thus remain under his comrade's
superintendence. Yet while preparing to avail himself of Hartley's
good offices, the prevailing reflection of his secret bosom was the
ungrateful sentiment, “Had Heaven no other means of saving me than by
the hands of him I like least on the face of the earth?”
Meanwhile, ignorant of the ungrateful sentiments of his comrade, and
indeed wholly indifferent how he felt towards him, Hartley proceeded
in doing him such service as was in his power, without any other object
than the discharge of his own duty as a man and as a Christian. The
manner in which he became qualified to render his comrade assistance,
requires some short explanation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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