It was just as well that Mr. Banneret made himself acquainted with the hospital and the _personnel_ of its guardian angels—a term used by himself in the aftertime—as, within a month after the official opening, he was himself an inmate of the institution referred to.
Yes! there was no immunity, no safeguarding by means of careful sanitation at the claim, temperate living, box baths (though these were in the nature of luxuries), an elevated situation—precautions which, under other circumstances, and in other places, had baffled the fever fiend. First a queer feeling, half-cold and shivering, half-hot and feverish; then a racking headache, vainly endured, and struggled against in hope of relief—worse on the next day; then the ordinary symptoms: a sleepless night, a half-conscious feeling of ‘lightheadedness.’ On the morrow, word went through the camp that Mr. Banneret, of the great Reward Claim at Pilot Mount, was in the hospital, ‘down with typhoid.’ The building had been full for days, but one bed had been vacated, at the instance of Head Physician Death, and into the empty cot the ‘respected chief shareholder in the well-known Reward Claim’ (see the _Miner’s Mentor_ of the day, ‘Personal Column’) and ex-Commissioner of Barrawong was deposited. On the morning which followed, the patient was in a high fever, raving in delirium, temperature 105 degrees. The doctor pronounced it a definite case of typhoid. On the first day of the seizure—how sudden and cruel it was!—he had written to his wife that he had dropped in for a ‘feverish attack,’ but not to be alarmed—would probably pass off in a day or two—she knew he had felt that way before; but had thought it wiser, considering the heat of the climate, to go to bed for a day or two. The hospital was really most comfortable, and well managed; in Mrs. Lilburne he had, she would be glad to hear, a most capable and attentive nurse. She was on no account to be alarmed, or to _dream_ of coming over—which would only be an expensive and disagreeable journey for her. Mrs. Lilburne would write and tell her how he was getting on. It was a great nuisance—indeed, most disappointing—that this sort of thing should have happened, and that he had more than once been tempted to wish himself back at poor old Barrawong; though, of course, they had gone through the same epidemic there, when poor young Danvers, the curate at the township, and Mr. Thornton, who was past middle age, with ever so many other people, had died, and it seemed to be in the nature of a lottery who should catch it and who should escape, who should live and who should die. He was glad to hear that Reggie was getting on so well at school, and that the other children were thriving. He had got little Winnie’s letter, and would answer it to-morrow, etc. When the morrow came, as before stated, he was not in a condition to write or read letters, or indeed to perform any of the literary duties which had previously occupied much of his time. The doctor and the nurse were engaged in anxious consultation—the one taking his temperature, which the nurse registered very carefully; both faces wearing a very serious, indeed anxious expression.