Then he wept and fainted.
Coming round now.

Got the funks, poor chap." Lucille's hands closed (the thumbs correctly on the knuckles of the second fingers), and, for a moment, it was in her heart to smite the Haddock on the lying mouth with the straight-from-the-shoulder drive learned in days of yore from Dam, and practised on the punching-ball with great assiduity.

Apparently the Haddock realized the fact for he skipped backward with agility.
"He is ill, Grumper dear," she said instead.

"He has had a kind of fit.

Perhaps he had sunstroke in India, and it has just affected him now in the sun...." Grumper achieved the snort of his life.
It may have penetrated Dam's comatose brain, indeed, for at that moment, with a moan and a shudder, he struggled to a sitting posture.
"The Snake," he groaned, and collapsed again.
"What the Devil!" roared the General.