They turned over on their sides.
"Three more days," said Trench.
"Only three more days," Feversham replied. And in a minute they were
neither in England nor the Soudan; the stars marched to the morning
unnoticed above their heads. They were lost in the pleasant countries of
sleep.
CHAPTER XXIX
COLONEL TRENCH ASSUMES A KNOWLEDGE OF CHEMISTRY
"Three more days." Both men fell asleep with these words upon their
lips. But the next morning Trench waked up and complained of a fever;
and the fever rapidly gained upon him, so that before the afternoon had
come he was light-headed, and those services which he had performed for
Feversham, Feversham had now to perform for him. The thousand nights of
the House of Stone had done their work. But it was no mere coincidence
that Trench should suddenly be struck down by them at the very moment
when the door of his prison was opening. The great revulsion of joy
which had come to him so unexpectedly had been too much for his
exhausted body. The actual prospect of escape had been the crowning
trial which he could not endure.
"In a few days he will be well," said Feversham. "It is nothing."
"It is _Umm Sabbah_," answered Ibrahim, shaking his head, the terrible
typhus fever which had struck down so many in that infected gaol and
carried them off upon the seventh day.
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