He dismissed the subject for more pressing matters, and he never noticed the awful whiteness of Merryon’s face or the deadly fixity of his look.

Macfarlane noticed both, coming up two hours later to report the death of one of the officers at the bungalow.

“For Heaven’s sake, man, have some brandy!” he said, proffering a flask of his own.  “You’re looking pretty unhealthy.  What is it?  Feeling a bit off, eh?”

He held Merryon’s wrist while he drank the brandy, regarding him with a troubled frown the while.

“What is the matter with you, man?” he said.  “You’re not frightening yourself?  You wouldn’t be such a fool!”

Merryon did not answer.  He was never voluble.  To-day he seemed tongue-tied.

Macfarlane continued with an uneasy effort to hide a certain doubt stirring in his mind.  “I hear there was a European died at the dak-bungalow early this morning.  I wanted to go round and see, but I haven’t been able.  It’s fairly widespread, but there’s no sense in getting scared.  Halloa, Merryon!”

He broke off, staring.  Merryon had given a great start.  He looked like a man stabbed suddenly from a dream to full consciousness.

“A European—­at the dak-bungalow—­dead, did you say?”

His words tumbled over each other; he gripped Macfarlane’s shoulder and shook it with fierce impatience.

“So I heard.  I don’t know any details.  How should I?  Merryon, are you mad?” Macfarlane put up a quick hand to free himself, for the grip was painful.  “He wasn’t a friend of yours, I suppose?  He wouldn’t have been putting up there if he had been.”

“No, no; not—­a friend.”  The words came jerkily.  Merryon was breathing in great spasms that shook him from head to foot.  “Not—­a friend!” he said again, and stopped, gazing before him with eyes curiously contracted as the eyes of one striving to discern something a long way off.

Macfarlane slipped a hand under his elbow.  “Look here,” he said, “you must have a rest.  You can be spared for a bit now.  Walk back with me to the hospital, and we will see how things are going there.”

His hand closed urgently.  He began to draw him away.

Merryon’s eyes came back as it were out of space, and gave him a quick side-glance that was like the turn of a rapier.  “I must go down to the dak-bungalow,” he said, with decision.

Swift protest rose to the doctor’s lips, but it died there.  He tightened his hold instead, and went with him.

The colonel looked round sharply at their approach, looked—­and swore under his breath.  “Yes, all right, major, you’d better go,” he said.  “Good-bye.”

Merryon essayed a grim smile, but his ashen face only twisted convulsively, showing his set teeth.  He hung on Macfarlane’s shoulder while the first black cloud of agony possessed him and slowly passed.

Then, white and shaking, he stood up.  “I’ll get round to the dak now, before I’m any worse.  Don’t come with me, Macfarlane!  I’ll take an orderly.”