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Page 69
The days passed; soon a fortnight was gone by. Drearily, mechanically,
Bennett had begun work upon his book, the narrative of the expedition.
It was repugnant to him. Long since he had lost all interest in polar
exploration. As he had said to Adler, he was out of it, finally and
irrevocably. His bolt was shot; his role upon the stage of the world was
ended. He only desired now to be forgotten as quickly as possible, to
lapse into mediocrity as easily and quietly as he could. Fame was
nothing to him now. The thundering applause of an entire world that had
once been his was mere noise, empty and meaningless. He did not care to
reawaken it. The appearance of his book he knew was expected and waited
for in every civilised nation of the globe. It would be printed in
languages whereof he was ignorant, but it was all one with him now.
The task of writing was hateful to him beyond expression, but with such
determination as he could yet summon to his aid Bennett stuck to it,
eight, ten, and sometimes fourteen hours each day. In a way his
narrative was an atonement. Ferriss was its hero. Almost instinctively
Bennett kept the figure of himself, his own achievements, his own plans
and ideas, in the background. On more than one page he deliberately
ascribed to Ferriss triumphs which no one but himself had attained. It
was Ferriss who was the leader, the victor to whom all laurels were due.
It was Ferriss whose example had stimulated the expedition to its best
efforts in the darkest hours; it was, practically, Ferriss who had saved
the party after the destruction of the ship; whose determination,
unbroken courage, endurance, and intelligence had pervaded all minds and
hearts during the retreat to Kolyuchin Bay.
"Though nominally in command," wrote Bennett, "I continually gave place
to him. Without his leadership we should all, unquestionably, have
perished before even reaching land. His resolution to conquer, at
whatever cost, was an inspiration to us all. Where he showed the way we
had to follow; his courage was never daunted, his hope was never dimmed,
his foresight, his intelligence, his ingenuity in meeting and dealing
with apparently unsolvable problems were nothing short of marvellous.
His was the genius of leadership. He was the explorer, born to his
work."
One day, just after luncheon, as Bennett, according to his custom, was
walking in the garden by the house, smoking a cigar before returning to
his work, he was surprised to find himself bleeding at the nose. It was
but a trifling matter, and passed off in a few moments, but the fact of
its occurrence directed his attention to the state of his health, and he
told himself that for the last few days he had not been at all his
accustomed self. There had been dull pains in his back and legs; more
than once his head had pained him, and of late the continuance of his
work had been growing steadily more obnoxious to him, the very physical
effort of driving the pen from line to line was a burden.
"Hum!" he said to himself later on in the day, when the bleeding at the
nose returned upon him, "I think we need a little quinine."
But the next day he found he could not eat, and all the afternoon,
though he held doggedly to his work, he was troubled with nausea. At
times a great weakness, a relaxing of all the muscles, came over him. In
the evening he sent a note to Dr. Pitts's address in the City, asking
him to come down to Medford the next day.
* * * * *
On the Monday morning of the following week, some two hours after
breakfast, Lloyd met Miss Douglass on the stairs, dressed for the street
and carrying her nurse's bag.
"Are you going out?" she asked of the fever nurse in some astonishment.
"Where are you going?" for Lloyd had returned to duty, and it was her
name that now stood at the top of the list; "I thought it was my turn to
go out," she added.
Miss Douglass was evidently much confused.
Her meeting with Lloyd had apparently been unexpected. She halted upon
the stairs in great embarrassment, stammering:
"No--no, I'm on call. I--I was called out of my turn--specially
called--that was it."
"Were you?" demanded Lloyd sharply, for the other nurse was disturbed to
an extraordinary degree.
"Well, then; no, I wasn't, but the superintendent--Miss Bergyn--she
thought--she advised--you had better see her."
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