In the drawn and distorted features that lay before me
I could hardly trace the same face that for years had been my comfort
through all the difficulties and dangers of my path. Was she to die? Was
so terrible a sacrifice to be the result of my selfish exile?
Again the night passed away. Once more the march. Though weak and ill,
and for two nights without a moment's sleep, I felt no fatigue, but
mechanically followed by the side of the litter as though in a dream.
The same wild country diversified with marsh and forest! Again we
halted. The night came, and I sat by her side in a miserable hut, with
the feeble lamp flickering while she lay as in death. She had never
moved a muscle since she fell. My people slept. I was alone, and no
sound broke the stillness of the night. The ears ached at the utter
silence, till the sudden wild cry of a hyena made me shudder as the
horrible thought rushed through my brain that, should she be buried in
this lonely spot, the hyena - would disturb her rest.
The morning was not far distant; it was past four o'clock. I had passed
the night in replacing wet cloths upon her head and moistening her lips,
as she lay apparently lifeless on her litter. I could do nothing more;
in solitude and abject misery in that dark hour, in a country of savage
heathen, thousands of miles away from a Christian land, I beseeched an
aid above all human, trusting alone to Him.
The morning broke; my lamp had just burned out, and cramped with the
night's watching I rose from my low seat and seeing that she lay in the
same unaltered state I went to the door of the hut to breathe one gasp
of the fresh morning air. I was watching the first red streak that
heralded the rising sun, when I was startled by the words, "Thank God,"
faintly uttered behind me. Suddenly she had awoke from her torpor, and
with a heart overflowing I went to her bedside. Her eyes were full of
madness! She spoke, but the brain was gone!
I will not inflict a description of the terrible trial of seven days of
brain fever, with its attendant horrors. The rain poured in torrents,
and day after day we were forced to travel for want of provisions, not
being able to remain in one position. Every now and then we shot a few
guinea-fowl, but rarely; there was no game, although the country was
most favorable. In the forests we procured wild honey, but the deserted
villages contained no supplies, as we were on the frontier of Uganda,
and M'tese's people had plundered the district. For seven nights I had
not slept, and although as weak as a reed, I had marched by the side of
her litter.
