Barry retired, silenced but unconvinced. And the next time that Brian saw Percival alone, he said to him drily:--

"I would rather make my own romances about my future life, if it's all the same to you."

"Eh? What? What do you mean?"

"Don't tell these poor fellows that I have property in Scotland, please.

It is not the case."

"Oh, that's what you're making a fuss about. But I can't help it," said Percival, shrugging his shoulders. "If you are Brian Luttrell, as Vasari swears you are--swearing it to his own detriment, too, which inclines me to believe that it is true--the Strathleckie estate is yours."

"You can't prove that I am Brian Luttrell."

"But I might prove--when we get back to Scotland--that you bore the name of Brian Luttrell for three or four-and-twenty years of your life."

"I am not going back to Scotland," said the young man, looking steadily and attentively at Percival's troubled countenance.

"Yes, you are. I promised that you should come back, and you must not make me break my word."

"Whom did you promise?"

"I promised Elizabeth."

And then the two men felt that the conversation had better cease.

Percival walked rapidly away, while Brian, who could not walk anywhere, lay flat on his back and listened, with dreamy eyes, to the long monotonous rise and fall of the waves upon the shore.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH.

"Pollard's down with this fever," was the announcement which Percival made to Brian a few days later.

"Badly?"

"A smart touch. And Jackson doesn't mend as he ought to do. I can't understand why either of them should have it at all. The island may be barren, but it ought to be healthy."

"I wish I could do anything beside lying here like a log."

"Well, you can't," said Percival, by no means unkindly. "I never heard that it was any good to stand on a broken leg. I'll manage."

Such interchange of semi-confidential sentences was now rare between them. Percival was, for the most part, very silent when circumstances threw him into personal contact with Brian; and there was something repellant about this silence--something which prevented Brian from trying to break it. Brian was feeling bitterly that he had done Percival some wrong: he knew that he might justly be blamed for returning to Scotland after his supposed death. He need not have practised any deception at all, but, having practised it, he ought to have maintained it. He had no right to let the estates pass to Elizabeth unless he meant her to keep them. Such, he imagined, might well be Percival's attitude of mind towards him.

And then there was the question of his love for Elizabeth, of which both Elizabeth herself and Dino Vasari had made Heron aware. But in this there was nothing to be ashamed of. When he fell in love with Elizabeth, he thought her comparatively poor and friendless, and he did not know of her engagement to Percival. He never whispered to himself that he had won her heart: that fact, which Elizabeth fancied that she had made shamefully manifest, had not been grasped by Brian's consciousness at all. He would have thought himself a coxcomb to imagine that she cared for him more than as a friend. If he had ever dreamt of such a thing, he assured himself that he had made a foolish mistake.

He thought that he understood what Percival wanted to say to him. Of course, since Dino had disclosed the truth, Elizabeth Murray desired to give up the property, and her lover had volunteered to come in search of the missing man. It was a generous act, and one that Brian thoroughly admired: it was worthy, he thought, of Elizabeth's lover. For he knew that he had always been especially obnoxious to Percival Heron in his capacity as tutor; and now, if he were to assume the character of a claimant to Elizabeth's estates, he would certainly not find the road to Percival's liking. For his own part, Brian respected and liked Percival Heron much more than he had found it possible to do during those flying visits to Italy, when he had systematically made himself disagreeable to the unknown Mr. Stretton. He admired the way in which Percival assumed the leadership of the party, and bore the burden of all their difficulties on his own broad shoulders: he admired his cheerfulness and untiring energy. He was sure that if Heron could succeed in carrying him off to England, and forcing him to make Elizabeth a poor woman instead of a rich one, he would be only too pleased to do so. But this was a thing which Brian did not mean to allow.

Jackson's illness was a protracted one, and left him in a weak state, from which he had not recovered when Pollard died. Then the boy Barry fell ill--out of sheer fright, Percival declared; but his attack was a very slight one, prolonged from want of energy rather than real indisposition. Heron was the only nurse, for Fenwick's strength had to be utilised in procuring food for the party; and, as he was often up all night and busy all day long, it was no surprise to Brian when at last he staggered, rather than walked into the hut, and threw himself down on the ground, declaring himself so tired that he could not keep awake. And he had scarcely said the words when slumber overpowered him.

Brian, who was beginning to move about a very little, crawled to the door and managed to attract Fenwick's attention. The man--a rough, black-bearded sailor--came up to him with a less surly look than usual.

"How's Barry?" said Brian.

"Better. He's all right. They've both got round the corner now, though I think the master thought yesterday that Barry would follow Pollard. It was faint-heartedness as killed Pollard, and it's faint-heartedness that'll kill Barry, if he don't look out."

"See here," said Brian, indicating the sleeper with his finger. "You don't think Mr. Heron has got the fever, do you?"

Fenwick took a step forward and looked stolidly at Percival's face, which was very pale.

"Not he. Dead-beat, sir; that's all. He's done his work like a man, and earned a sleep. He'll be right when he wakes."

Armed with this assurance, Brian resumed his occupation of weaving cocoa-nut fibre; but he grew uneasy, when, at the end of a couple of hours, Percival's face began to flush and his limbs to toss restlessly upon the ground. He muttered incoherent words from time to time, and at last awoke and asked for water. Brian's walking was a matter of difficulty; he took some minutes in crossing the room to bring a cocoa-nut, which had been made into a cup, to Percival's side; and by the time he had done it, Heron was wide awake.

"What on earth are you doing, bringing me water in this way? You ought to be lying down, and I ought to go to Barry. If I were not so sleepy!"

"Go to sleep," said Brian. "Barry's all right. I asked Fenwick just now."

"I suppose I've gone and caught it," said Percival, in a decidedly annoyed tone of voice. "A nice state of things if I were to be laid up!

I won't be laid up either. It's to a great extent a matter of will; look at Barry--and Pollard." His voice sank a little at the latter name.

"You're only tired: you will be all right presently."

"You don't think I'm going to have the fever, then?"

"No," said Brian, wondering a little at his anxiety.

There was a long pause: then Heron spoke again.

"Luttrell." It was the first time that he had addressed Brian by his name. "If I have the fever and go off my head as the others have all done, will you remember--it's just a fancy of mine--that I--I don't exactly want you to hear what I say! Leave me in this hut, or move me into the other one, will you?"

"I'll do as you wish," said Brian, seriously, "but I needn't tell you that I should attach no importance to what you said. And I should be pleased to do anything that I was able to do for you, if you were ill."

"Well," said Percival, "I may not be ill after all. But I thought I would mention it. And, Luttrell, supposing I were to follow Pollard's example--"

"What is the good of talking in that way when you are not even ill?"

"Never mind that. If you get off this island and I don't, I want you to promise me to go and see Elizabeth." Then, as Brian hesitated, "You must go. You must see her and talk to her; do you hear? Good Heavens! How can you hesitate? Do you mean to let her think for ever that I have betrayed her trust?"

Decidedly the fever was already working in his veins. The flushed face, the unnaturally brilliant eyes, the excitement of his manner, all testified to its presence. Brian felt compelled to answer quietly,

"I promise."

"All right," said Percival, lying down again and closing his eyes. "And now you can tell Fenwick that he's got another patient. It's the fever; I know the signs."

And he was right. But the fever took a different course with him from that which it had taken with the others: he was never delirious at all, but lay in a death-like stupor from which it seemed that he might not awake. Once--some days after the beginning of his illness--he came to himself for a few minutes with unexpected suddenness. It was midnight, and there was no light in the hut beyond that which came from the brilliant radiance of the moon as it shone in at the open door. Percival opened his eyes and made a sound, to which Brian answered immediately by giving him something to drink.

"You've broken your promise," said Percival, in a whisper, keeping his eyes fixed suspiciously on Brian's face.