The Gadfly

Excerpt: ..."Then what was the end of it?" "That I can't tell you much about; a man doesn't remember the next few days after a thing of that kind, as a rule. But there was a ship's surgeon near, and it seems that when they found I was not dead, somebody called him in. He patched me up after a fashion-Riccardo seems to think it was rather badly done, but that may be professional jealousy. Anyhow, when I came to my senses, an old native woman had taken me in for Christian charity-that sounds queer, doesn't it? She used to sit huddled up in the corner of the hut, smoking a black pipe and spitting on the floor and crooning to herself. However, she meant well, and she told me I might die in peace and nobody should disturb me. But the spirit of contradiction was strong in me and I elected to live. It was rather a difficult job scrambling back to life, and sometimes I am inclined to think it was a great deal of cry for very little wool. Anyway that old woman's patience was wonderful; she kept me-how long was it?-nearly four months lying in her hut, raving like a mad thing at intervals, and as vicious as a bear with a sore ear between-whiles. The pain was pretty bad, you see, and my temper had been spoiled in childhood with overmuch coddling." "And then?" "Oh, then-I got up somehow and crawled away. No, don't think it was any delicacy about taking a poor woman's charity-I was past caring for that; it was only that I couldn't bear the place any longer. You talked just now about my courage; if you had seen me then! The worst of the pain used to come on every evening, about dusk; and in the afternoon I used to lie alone, and watch the sun get lower and lower-- Oh, you can't understand! It makes me sick to look at a sunset now!" A long pause. "Well, then I went up country, to see if I could get work anywhere-it would have driven me mad to stay in Lima. I got as far as Cuzco, and there--- Really I...