"It will be here presently," she said. "Oh! if you knew what I have
suffered, if you only knew. Now you will recover whom I thought dead,
for this fever passes quickly and there shall be such a sacrifice--no, I
forgot, you hate sacrifices--there shall be no sacrifice, there shall
be a thanksgiving, and every woman in the land shall break her bonds to
husband or to lover and take him whom she desires without reproach or
loss. I will do as I would be done by, that is the law you taught me, is
it not?"
This novel interpretation of a sacred doctrine, worthy of Jeekie
himself, so paralyzed Alan's enfeebled brain that he could make no
answer, nor do anything except wonder what would happen in Asiki-land
when the decree of its priestess took effect. Then Jeekie arrived
with something to drink which he swallowed with the eagerness of the
convalescent and almost immediately went to sleep in good earnest.
Alan's recovery was rapid, since as the Asika had told him, if a patient
lives through it, the kind of fever that he had taken did not last long
enough to exhaust his vital forces. When she asked him if he needed
anything to make him well, he answered:
"Yes, air and exercise.
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