The Potter and the Clay: A Romance of Today

  *XVI.*

  Mackenzie went in search of Clarke.

  "Drop everything and come with me," he said. "It’sTrevelyan—Trevelyan’s got the cholera."

  Clarke took a long breath. Then he called to two passing orderlies.

  Mackenzie led the three of them back to the apothecary’s shop, as asoldier would have led a squad of men forward to meet an enemy, his facehard with the control he had put upon it, but it changed suddenly asthey reached Trevelyan and picked him up and bore him down the hall. Heallowed them to do so unresistingly, falling back into their arms a deadweight. They staggered under it. He made no comment until they reachedthe door of the surgeons’ room. Then he shook his head.

  "Not there," he said. "Take me in with the men."

  "But you’ll be ever so much more comfortable here," said Clarke, stillbreathing quickly under the weight of his portion of the burden.

  "You’d better let us take you in here, lad," said Mackenzie, bendingover him. "You’ll get well twice as quick and it’s quieter, and thenausea will pass——"

  "It’s the cholera," said Trevelyan, in a clear calm voice. "Take me inwith the men."