COLLEGE DAYS 27 



brute with every vice, who nearly killed his last rider, 

 and whom no one has mounted since/ ' Let me see him ! ' 

 Out came the horse from his stable ; but at the first advance 

 it reared, to fall on him with his forefeet, and to bite as 

 well. Dodging this attack, he jumped on its back, where- 

 upon the furious creature instantly bolted with him ; and 

 so, without a moment for farewell, much less for prepara- 

 tion for a more decorous start, the headlong gallop went 

 on without possibility of restraint. On the way appeared 

 a river previously crossed when asleep in the palanquin, 

 and with the road apparently making clear for its bridge ; 

 but with a path breaking off alongside some way ahead. 

 With the hunter's instinct and quick decision, he forced 

 the horse aside ; and the next moment saw the justification 

 of his action in avoiding the bridge broken by the flood, 

 into which horse and he, but for this change, must have 

 plunged together. In another moment the path led to a 

 light bamboo footbridge extemporised to replace the broken 

 one, and this the wild creature took in a few bounds, 

 cracking it nearly to breaking. Only after fourteen miles 

 was it exhausted, and so the final seven miles it went 

 quietly. The fever patient, exhausted still more, started on 

 the long railway journey to Calcutta. The fever resisted 

 quinine and all other treatment, and made frequent and 

 exhausting returns ; so that the University degree was 

 taken under difficulties. Nor did the brief home holiday 

 before sailing to England relieve it either. 



With the sea- voyage, the fever grew worse, not better. 

 One day of extreme paroxysms, in making for the surgery, 

 he collapsed at the door, and was carried to his berth in 

 the doctor's arms. Treatment and nursing failed, as 

 in Calcutta ; and the patient overheard people saying, 

 ' That poor boy will never see England.' His one pleasur- 

 able recollection of the whole long journey is of two 

 ladies on the railway journey from Southampton, who 

 spoke to him kindly and gave him their illustrated papers ; 



