So that consternation and excitement were great among those who sat upon the verandah after dinner, partaking of coffee and cigarettes before undertaking the more strenuous task of entertaining themselves, when in the glare of the electric light a great camel suddenly appeared out of the night, and totally disregarding the upraised voice of the enormous hotel porter, subsided in the gutter, thereby causing a block in the street; whilst a man clumsily dismounted and staggered up the shallow steps, tenderly holding some covered burden the while in his arms that were breaking with fatigue, and who, speaking with authority, demanded speech of the proprietor, who, furious at being disturbed, came forth as furiously to annihilate the disturber, but instead, at the first word from the Arab, who clutched a dirty piece of paper in a hand almost paralysed with cramp, lifted a corner of the cloth from about that which lay so inertly under the all-hiding cloak, and choked, and stuttered, and then recovering himself, blandly led the Arab to the lift which whirled them to the first floor, leaving the occupants on the verandah all a-twitter, whilst the coffee grew cold and the cigarettes went out.

CHAPTER XLIV

Days and nights passed, and still more days and nights, in which the man, bound from head to foot in soft wrappings soaked in unguents, tossed and raved, screaming for water, tearing at the bed-linen which to his distorted mind was alive with every conceivable insect, beating blindly at the faces of the two women who, refusing any help, watched over and tended Jack Wetherbourne through his days of distress.

“Aye, lass!  Now don’t ’ee lose ’eart,” whispered Sarah Ann Gruntham to the girl who, having held consultation with the doctor, was sobbing her heart out on the elder woman’s motherly bosom which covered a heart of purest gold.  “Don’t ’ee listen to such fash, lass, for what’s he likely to know outside of Lady Jones’s wimble-wambles and me Lor’ Fitznoodles’ rheumatism.  Why ’e couldn’t even tell that I ’ad ’ad a touch of my old complaint, and me with an ’andle to me name.  Come, lass, oop with ye bonnie head, for I’ll tell ’ee the great news—­I sees a bead o’ perspiration on Sir John’s brow—­an’ so I’m off to take me ’air out of crackers.  Though Tim does find it more home-like, ’e says, when I ’ave ’em h’in—­oh, dearie! dearie!  I often wish I was plain Mrs. Gruntham again with no aitches to mind.  I’ll be with you in ten minutes, and then, lass, ye’ll just run away and have a bath—­I managed the aitch that time—­and come back as fresh as a daisy, if there were such a innocent thing in this land of sphinxes and minxes—­and ye’ll see ten beads then, which sounds as tho’ I be a Roman instead of a strict Baptist.  I’ll run along, love, and don’t let ’im see tears in them bonny eyes of yours when he comes to know ye, lass.”

And the dearest old soul in the world waddled away to take her hair out of the crackers which had made a steel halo round her silvery hair for many a night, and waddled hack again to see Mary with a great glow in her eyes, and her hand clasping the skeleton fingers of Jack Wetherbourne, who had known her at last, and was gazing blissfully at his beloved.