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He had put off his shoes, so as to walk more softly; and he came and went on tiptoe, his face full of care and anxiety, preparing draughts, and handling with his huge bony hands, with laughable, but almost touching precautions, the small phials out of which he had to give a spoonful to his patient at stated times. "I'll have you appointed head nurse of the navy, Lefloch," said the old surgeon.
But he was so excessively weak, that he remained nearly all the time plunged in a kind of torpor which looked very much like death itself. When he was aroused for a time, he always asked in an almost inaudible voice, "Are there no letters for me from France?" Invariably, Lefloch replied, according to orders received from the doctor, "None, lieutenant." But he told a falsehood.
The names of Sarah Brandon, Mrs. Brian, and Thomas Elgin, were constantly on his lips, mixed up with imprecations and fearful threats. For twenty days he remained so; and for twenty days and twenty nights his "man," Baptist Lefloch, who had caught the murderer, was by his bedside, watching his slightest movement, and ever bending over him tenderly.
At first my comrade and I did not recognize him, because a year and a half in this wretched country disfigure a man horribly; but, while we were carrying him to jail, we said to one another, 'That is a head we have seen before. Then we made him talk; and he told us gradually, that he had been one of the passengers, and that he even knew my name, which is Baptist Lefloch."
"It is as Lefloch says, my dear lieutenant; and, if you have not been told anything about it, it was because the slightest excitement would become fatal. Yesterday's experience has only proved that too clearly. Yes, the assassin is in jail." "And his account is made up," growled the sailor. But Daniel shrugged his shoulders, and said,
In three hours he had made all his preparations for his departure, arranged his business matters, and obtained a furlough for Lefloch, who was to go with him. At noon, therefore, he asked himself with terror, how he was to employ his time till night, when they came, and asked if he would please come over to the courthouse, to see the magistrate.
But he shook his head and answered, "I would not like the place, commandant. Only, you see, when we were down there on the Kamboja, and Baptist Lefloch was writhing like a worm in the grip of the cholera, and when he was already quite blue and cold, Lieut.
"You can never ask too much, M. Ravinet," he replied. "Lefloch, my servant, must have come up by this time with the trunks; and, if you give me time to go down to my room, you shall have the letters at once." He was on the point of leaving the room, when the old dealer held him back, and said, "Sir, you forget the man who has been following you all the way from Marseilles.
Lefloch raised him on his pillows, stowed him away, as he called it; and the surgeon handed him his letters. Daniel uttered a cry of delight. At the first glance he had recognized on three of the envelopes Henrietta's handwriting. He kissed them, and said, "At last she writes!" The shock was so violent, that the doctor was almost frightened. "Be calm, my dear friend," he said. "Be calm!
That evening the officers of "The Conquest," gave Daniel a farewell dinner; and it was nearly midnight, when, after having once more shaken hands most cordially with the old chief surgeon, he took possession of his state-room, one of the largest on board ship, in which they had put up two berths, so that, in case of need, Lefloch might be at hand to attend his master.
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