CHAPTER VII.
A BEEF-EATER PASSES.
THE rigors of the London winter pursued the beef-eaters relentlessly, tapping them remindfully on the shoulder, now and again, with a cold, or a spell of bronchitis, and then, under cover of a fog, some deadly affliction fastened upon the pair all at once. The rover found them, after an absence from their quarters of two days, so ill that first one and then the other was crawling from his bed to minister to his comrade, so that both grew rapidly worse.
Adam looked at the two of them ruefully, when at length he came to where they were. He had never known them ill in this manner before. They cared nothing for eating; they slept but little. Their eyes were bright. They were perfectly cheerful, in a feeble sort of way. After the Sachem had come they declared they wanted for nothing, provided he would talk to them, sing a little and let them lie there and see him, or hear him play on his favorite violin.
He brought them every comfort which money could buy. He cooked for them, served them and ate at their board—which was a board indeed, reaching from one bed to the other, where they could easily get at what he spread on its surface for their pleasure. But the choice wines he fetched, and the fruits and the delicate bits of game and fish, remained almost wholly untasted.
Adam was soon at a loss to know what to do. He tried to get at their symptoms.
“Pike, you rogue,” he said, “I want to know where you feel bad. You are ill, you know; now where is the pain?”
“By my sword-stroke,” said Pike, in a worn-down voice, “I have no pain. I may be tired, to-day, but to-morrow, bring me a pirate and I shall eat him without the trouble of slicing him first.”
“Tired, that’s it,” agreed Halberd. “I’m a bit tired myself, this afternoon, but by cock’s crow to-morrow I could enjoy pulling the tail out of a lion and beating the beast to death with the bloody end of it.”
“Well, doesn’t your stomach ache, or your head hurt you?” insisted Adam. “When you cough like that, doesn’t it hurt your chest?”
“No, I like it, for the tickling,” said Halberd.
The two old scamps were afraid of being taken across the channel to Spain again, or down into France, or perhaps across to Morocco. After three days of his “tinkering” unsuccessfully, with his faithful companions, Adam called in a doctor.
The worthy physician promptly bled the two patients. Little Pike became quieter, if possible, than before. Halberd, on the contrary, was somewhat wrought up in his feelings.
“By my steel!” said he, when the doctor had departed, “this puny Sir Nostrum has let more of my juice with his nonsense than ever was taken by swordsman out of my carcass. Faith! I’ll pulp the fellow, and he comes again!”
Adam laughed, for Halberd suddenly got back a monstrous appetite. He likewise abounded in pains, which he permitted the Sachem to soothe; and he otherwise improved past all belief. He had been a little ill, and his sympathy with Pike had made his ailment mischievous.
Pike, however, had no such rally in him. He put in his time smoothing the coverlet with slow, feeble movements, while he lay there looking at Adam with dumb affection until one could almost fancy he was wagging a tail, with weak, joyful jerks.
He got the Sachem to sing him the love song of the many seas, for Pike had once had a heart full of love for a maiden himself, and while the experience was nothing jollier than a funeral on the day set for the wedding, nevertheless he liked the lively song, with all its various maids and misses mentioned, for he conceived them all to be the self-same girl, after all, simply transported to different climes.
While Adam was singing and playing, with the merriest spirit he could conjure, the wistful old Pike had the impudence to close his eyes and die.
A faint smile lingered on his face; whether as a result of his joke on Adam and Halberd, or his pleasure derived from the song, could never be known.