dressing the father.

"Yes, at your service; but not having had any before, what have you been
using?" replied the noble, taking the sick man's hands, and feeling his
pulse.

"A drink made out of the kumbunga plant. It has cured me more than
once."

"Wait," cried the girl, eager to be of use. "I will return in a
moment," and she flew out of the room, showing as she moved the
beautiful foot and ankle peculiar to the Portuguese.

The old noble shook his head as he let the arm he held fall on the
bed-clothes.

"There, use that at once," said the breathless girl, as she returned
with a small bottle filled with quinine. "And as soon as you can, get
away from this terrible place."

"We will leave now, my daughter; we are but in the way. Later on we may
be useful. Command me, Senhor," added the Portuguese; "whatever I have
is at your service. I pray you do not spare me or mine."

With a stately wave of the hand, as though he were quitting a palace,
instead of a poor barrack-room in a dilapidated fort, the nobleman
passed on.

"You will let me know," said Isabel, pausing before she joined her
father, and raising the large black eyes to the missionary's face--"you
will let me know how your poor friend is." And with one more glance
round the room, and at the wretched bed, she passed out.

Wyzinski stood looking at her. It seemed like a dream; but then there
was the stoppered bottle of white powder in his hand to prove the
reality. All that day, all that night, the missionary watched by the
bedside. Towards midnight a heavy thunderstorm passed over the plains
watered by the Zambesi. The air seemed blue with the forked lightning;
the thunder rattled and roared over the fort, but the morning dawned
calm and beautiful, and a cool breeze blew in at the open windows,
bringing with it the sweet breath of the tamarind flowers. The quinine,
too, had done its work; and the crisis which in the dreadful tertian
fever of the Zambesi always occurs on the third day, had passed over
favourably. These storms are of frequent occurrence in the land through
which the Zambesi rolls its waters, and scarcely a week goes by without
the thunder making itself heard round the dilapidated walls of Senna.
Another of these periodical storms had just occurred, sweeping over the
land, accompanied by torrents of rain, cooling the air, and refreshing
the parched-up plains on the banks of the Zambesi. The river was high
in consequence, ro