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To Win or to Die: A Tale of the Klondike Gold Craze, a fiction by George Manville Fenn |
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Chapter 7. Fevered Dreams |
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_ CHAPTER SEVEN. FEVERED DREAMS "It is _no_ wandering dream, Bel. I tell you I seem to have been inspired to do exactly the same as you did, and I went to Uncle Morgan, who treated me just as he treated you." "Yes, a dream--off my head," said Abel Wray, in his harsh whisper. "No, no, old fellow," cried Dallas; "it is all true. Uncle was never so strange to me before. It was because you had been to him first. It is wonderful. Your voice is so changed I did not know it, and in the darkness I never saw your face." "Yes--delirious," croaked Abel. "They say it is so before death." "Nonsense, nonsense, lad! I came back just in time to save you, and now we have been saved, too, from a horrible death. After a bit we shall be stronger, and shall be able to see which way to begin tunnelling our way out to life again. Cheer up; we have got through the worst, and as soon as we are free we'll join hands and work together, so that we can show them at home that we have not come out in vain. How are you now?" A low rumbling utterance was the reply, and Dallas leaned towards him, feeling startled. "Don't you hear me?" he cried. "Why don't you answer?" "Dear old Dal--to begin dreaming of him now," came in a low muttering. "No, no; I tell you that it is all true." "All right, uncle," croaked Abel. "Not an hour longer than it takes to scrape together enough. Ha, ha, ha! and I thought you so hard and brutal to me. Eh? But you're not. It was a dreadful take in. I say!" "Yes, yes, old fellow. What?" "Don't say a word to dear old Dal. Let him stop and take care of aunt, and let them think I've shuffled out of the trouble. I'll show them when I come back." "Bel, old fellow," cried Dallas, seizing his cousin's hand, "what is it? Don't talk in that wild way." "That's right, uncle," croaked Abel. "We two used to laugh about you and call you the Hard Nut. So you are; but there's the sweet white kernel inside, and I swear I'll never lie down to sleep again without saying a word first for you. I say, one word," cried the poor fellow, grasping his cousin's hand hard: "you'll do something for old Dal, uncle? I'll pay you again. I don't want to see him roughing it as I shall out there for the gold--yes, for the gold--the rich red gold. Ah, that's cool and nice." For in his horror and alarm Dallas had laid a hand upon his cousin's temples, to find them burning: but the poor fellow yielded to the gentle pressure, and slowly subsided on to the rough couch they had made, and there he lay muttering for a time, but starting at intervals to cough, as if his injured throat troubled him with a choking sensation, till his ravings grew less frequent, and he sank into a deep sleep. "This is worse than all!" groaned Dallas. "Had I not enough to bear? His head is as if it were on fire. Fever--fever from his injury and the shock of all he has gone through. I thought he was talking wildly towards the last." As he spoke he was conscious of a sharp throbbing pang in his shoulder, and he laid a hand upon the place that he had forgotten; while now he woke to the fact that when he tried to think what it would be best to do for his cousin, the effort was painful, and the sensation came back that all this must be a feverish dream. He clapped his hands to his face. It and his brow were burning hot, and he knew that he was growing confused; so much so that he rose to his knees, then to his feet, and took a step or two, to stand wondering, for his senses left him for a moment or two, and then a strange thing befell him. A black veil seemed to have fallen in front of his eyes, and he was lost, utterly lost, and he had not the least idea where he was or what had been taking place during the past twenty-four hours. He stretched out his hands and touched the compressed snow, which was dripping with moisture; but that gave him no clue, for his mind seemed to be a perfect blank, and with a horrible feeling of despair he leaned forward to try and escape from the black darkness, when his burning brow came in contact with the icy wall of his prison, and it was like an electric shock. His position came back in a flash. Self was forgotten, and he sank upon his knees to feel for his cousin, horror-stricken now by the great dread that the poor fellow might die with him by his side quite unable to help. He forgot that but a short time back he was advocating a brave meeting of their fate. For since he had awakened to the fact that his boyhood's companion was with him, hope had arisen, and with it the determination to wait patiently till morning and then fight their way back to the light. Now all seemed over. Abel was terribly injured, fever had supervened, and he would die for want of help; while he, who would freely have given his life that Abel might live, was utterly helpless, and there was that terrible sensation of being lost coming on again. He pressed his head against the snow, but there was no invigorating sense of revival again--nothing but a curious, worrying feeling. Then he was conscious for a few moments that Abel was muttering loudly, but the injury to his shoulder was graver than he had imagined, and the feverish symptoms which follow a wound were increasing, so that before long he too had sunk into a nightmare-like sleep, conscious of nothing but the strange, bewildering images which haunted his distempered brain; and these were divided between his vain efforts to flee from some terrible danger, and to drag the heavily laden hand-sledge between two ice-covered rocks too close together to allow it to pass. _ |
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