The doctor's face was full of sympathy and
his own heart weighed down as he sadly answered, "No."
"If I only had some ice," he muttered, knowing well he had none.
"If there was only one bit of ice in Tamsui, I'd save him yet."
Over in the British consulate Dr. Johnsen had another patient.
Mr. Dodd lay sick there, though not nearly as ill as the
missionary, and the physician's next visit was to him. When he
entered he found a servant carrying a tray with some ice on it to
the sick room.
"Ice!" cried the doctor, overjoyed. "Where did it come from?"
The servant explained that the steamship Hailoong had just
arrived in Tamsui harbor with it that morning. The doctor entered
Mr. Dodd's room. Would he give him that ice to save Mackay's
life? was the question he asked. To save such a life as Mackay's!
That was an absurd question, Mr. Dodd declared, and he
immediately ordered that every bit of ice he had should be sent
at once to the missionary's house.
The doctor hurried back up the hill with the precious remedy. He
broke up a piece and laid it like a little cushion on poor Kai
Bok-su's hot forehead; that forehead beneath which the busy
brain, resting neither day nor night, was burning up.
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