Miss Leslie was too absorbed in her cooking to observe the result of Blake's greediness. She had turned the fish for the last time, and was about to lift them off the fire, when Blake came running back, and sent grill and all flying with a violent kick.
"Salt!" he gasped--"where's the salt? I'm poisoned!"
"Poison fish! Don't eat! God!--Where's the salt?"
The girl stared at him. His agony was so great that beads of sweat were rolling down his face. He writhed, and stretched out a quivering hand--"Salt, quick!--warm water--salt!"
"But there's none left! You remember, yesterday--"
"God!" groaned Blake, and for a moment he sank down, overcome by a racking convulsion. Then his jaw closed like a bulldog's, and gritting his teeth with the effort, he staggered up and rushed off down the cleft.
"Stop! stop, Mr. Blake! Where are you going?" screamed the girl.
She started to run after him, but was halted by an outburst of delirious laughter. Winthrope was sitting upright and waving his fever-blotched hands--"Hi, hi! look at 'im run! 'E's got w'at'll do for 'im! Run, you swine; you--"
There followed a torrent of cockney abuse so foul that Miss Leslie blushed scarlet with shame as she sought to quiet him. But the excitement had so heightened his fever that he was in a raving delirium. It was close upon midnight before his temperature fell, and he sank into a death-like torpor. In her ignorance, she supposed that he had fallen asleep.
Her relief was short-lived, for soon she remembered Blake. She could see him lying beside the pool or out on the bare plain, his resolute eyes cold and glassy, his powerful body contorted in the death agony. The vision filled her with dismay. With all his coarseness, the man had showed himself so resourceful, so indomitable, that when she sought to dwell upon her reasons to fear him, she found herself admiring his virile manliness. He might be a brute, but he did not belong among the jackals and hyenas. Indeed, as she called to mind his strong face and frank, blunt speech she all but disbelieved what her own ears had heard.
And anyway, without his aid, what should she do? Winthrope had already become as weak as a child. The emaciation of his jaundiced features was a mockery of their former plumpness. Blake had said that the fever might run on for another week, and that even if Winthrope recovered, he would probably be helpless for several days besides.