Nobody's Boy Part 22

Now we had to look for the dogs.

It was day now and easy for us to see what had happened. In the snow we read the death of our dogs. We followed their footprints for thirty yards. They had come out of the hut, one behind the other, Dulcie following Zerbino. Then we saw other footprints. On one side there were signs of a struggle where the wolves had sprung upon the dogs, and on the other sides were the footprints of the wolves where they trotted off, carrying their prey with them, to be devoured at their leisure.

There was no trace of the dogs except a red trail of blood which here and there stained the snow.

The two poor dogs had gone to their death while I slept!

We had to get busy as quickly as possible with warming Pretty-Heart. We hurried back to the hut. While Vitalis held out the little creature's feet and hands to the fire, as one holds a tiny baby, I warmed his coverlets and we rolled him up in them. But he needed more than the coverlets; he needed a warm drink. My master and I sat by the fire, silent, watching the wood burn.

"Poor Zerbino; poor Dulcie!"

Each of us murmured these words; first he, then I.

The dogs had been our friends, our companions, in good and bad fortune, and to me in my loneliness they had meant so much. How deeply I reproached myself for not having kept watch. The wolves would not have come to attack us in our cabin; they would have stayed in the distance, frightened by the fire.

If only Vitalis would have scolded me! I wished that he would beat me.

But he said nothing. He did not even look at me. He sat with his head bent over the fire; probably wondering what would become of us without the dogs.

CHAPTER XIV

THE DEATH OF PRETTY-HEART

The sun came out brightly. Its rays fell on the white snow, and the forest, which the night before had looked so bleak and livid, was now dazzling with a radiancy that blinded the eyes. Several times Vitalis pa.s.sed his hand under the coverlet to feel Pretty-Heart, but the poor little monkey did not get warmer, and when I bent over him I could hear him s.h.i.+vering and shaking. The blood in his veins was frozen.

"We must get to a village or Pretty-Heart will die," said Vitalis. "Let us start at once."

His wrappings were well heated and the little creature was rolled in them. My master placed him under his vest, next his heart. We were ready.

"This was a shelter," said Vitalis, looking round the hut as we were going out, "that has made us pay dearly for its hospitality." His voice trembled.

He went out first, and I followed in his footsteps. When we had gone a few yards we had to call to Capi. Poor dog, he had remained standing outside the hut, his nose turned to the spot where his companions had been taken by the wolves.

Ten minutes later we reached the main road. We pa.s.sed a cart; the driver told us that within an hour we should reach a village. This was encouraging, yet it was difficult, even painful, to walk. The snow came up to my waist. Many times I asked Vitalis after Pretty-Heart. Each time he told me that he was still s.h.i.+vering. At last we saw the white roofs of a fair sized village. We were not in the habit of putting up at the better cla.s.s inns. We always chose a poor place, where we were sure we should not be driven away, and where they would not take all we had.

But this time Vitalis went into an inn where a beautiful sign hung outside the kitchen door. The door was open and we could see the great stove covered with s.h.i.+ning copper saucepans, from which the steam was rising. Ah, how good that soup smelled to the famished wanderers!

My master, putting on his most "gentlemanly" airs, and with his hat on his head and his head thrown back, asked the landlady for a good bed and a fire. At first the landlady, who was a fine looking woman, had not condescended to notice us, but Vitalis' grand manner evidently impressed her. She spoke to a maid and told her to take us up to a room.

"Quick, get into bed," said Vitalis, while the servant was lighting the fire. I looked at him in astonishment. Why go to bed? I would rather sit down and eat something than go to bed.

"Quick, hurry up," repeated Vitalis.

There was nothing to do but to obey.

There was an eiderdown quilt on the bed. Vitalis pulled it right up to my chin.

"Try and get warm," he said; "the warmer you are the better."

It seemed to me that Pretty-Heart needed warming much more than I, because I was not very cold now. While I laid still under the eiderdown trying to get warm, Vitalis, to the servant's astonishment, turned little Pretty-Heart round and round before the fire as though he were going to roast him.

"Are you warm?" Vitalis asked me after a few minutes.

"I'm suffocating."

"That's right."

He came to the bed quickly. He put Pretty-Heart in, telling me to hold him close to my chest. The poor little animal, who always rebelled when he was made to do something that he did not want, seemed resigned to everything. He let me hold him close to my body without making a movement. But he was not cold now; his body was burning.

My master, who had gone down to the kitchen, soon returned, carrying a bowl of well sweetened wine. He tried to make Pretty-Heart drink a few spoonfuls, but the poor little creature could not unclench his teeth.

With his brilliant eyes he looked at us imploringly as though to ask us not to torment him. Then he drew one arm from under the covers and held it out to us.

I wondered what he meant. I looked inquiringly at Vitalis, who explained: Before I had met them Pretty-Heart had had inflammation of the lungs and they had had to bleed him, taking the blood from his arm.

Knowing that he was sick now he wanted us to bleed him so that he could get better as before.

Poor little monkey! Vitalis was touched to the heart, and this made him still more anxious. It was evident that Pretty-Heart was ill and he must be very ill indeed to refuse the sugared wine that he liked so much.

"Drink the wine, Remi, and stay in bed," said Vitalis. "I'll go for a doctor."

I must admit that I also liked sugared wine and besides I was very hungry. I did not let him tell me twice to drink it. After I had emptied the bowl I slid down under the eiderdown again, where the heat, aided by the wine, nearly suffocated me.

Vitalis was not gone long. He soon returned, bringing with him a gentleman wearing gold-rimmed spectacles--the doctor. Thinking that the doctor might not put himself out for a monkey, Vitalis had not told him who was his patient. When he saw me in bed, as red as a tomato, the doctor put his hand on my forehead and said at once: "Congestion."

He shook his head with an air which augured nothing good.

Anxious to undeceive him for fear he might bleed me, I cried: "Why, I'm not ill!"

"Not ill! Why, the child is delirious."

I lifted the quilt a bit and showed him Pretty-Heart, who had placed his little arm round my neck.

"He's the one that's ill," I said.

"A monkey!" he exclaimed, turning angrily to Vitalis. "You've brought me out in such weather to see a monkey!..."

Our master was a smart man who was not easily ruffled. Politely, and with his grand air, he stopped the doctor. Then he explained the situation, how he had been caught in a snowstorm, and how through fear of the wolves Pretty-Heart had jumped up in an oak tree, where he had been almost frozen to death. The patient might be only a monkey, but what a genius! and what a friend and companion to us! How could we confide such a wonderful, talented creature to the care of a simple veterinary surgeon? Every one knew that the village veterinary was an a.s.s, while every one knew that doctors were scientific men, even in the smallest village. If one rings at a door which bears a doctor's name, one is sure to find a man of knowledge, and of generosity. Although the monkey is only an animal, according to naturalists they are so near like men that often an illness is treated the same for one as for the other.

And was it not interesting, from a scientific point of view, to study how these illnesses differed. The doctor soon returned from the door where he had been standing.

Pretty-Heart, who had probably guessed that this person wearing the spectacles was a physician, again pushed out his arm.

"Look," cried Vitalis, "he wants you to bleed him."

That settled the doctor.

"Most interesting; a very interesting case," he murmured.

Alas! after examining him, the doctor told us that poor little Pretty-Heart again had inflammation of the lungs. The doctor took his arm and thrust a lancet into a vein without him making the slightest moan. Pretty-Heart knew that this ought to cure him.