Constantly We Had To Halt And Support Her Head, As A
Painful Rattling In The Throat Betokened Suffocation.
At length we reached a village, and halted for the night.
I laid her
carefully in a miserable hut, and watched beside her. I opened her
clenched teeth with a small wooden wedge, and inserted a wet rag, upon
which I dropped water to moisten her tongue, which was dry as fur. The
unfeeling brutes that composed the native escort were yelling and
dancing as though all were well; and I ordered their chief at once to
return with them to Kamrasi, as I would travel with them no longer. At
first they refused to return; until at length I vowed that I would fire
into them should they accompany us on the following morning. Day broke
and it was a relief to have got rid of the brutal escort. They had
departed, and I had now my own men, and the guides supplied by Kamrasi.
There was nothing to eat in this spot. My wife had never stirred since
she fell by the coup de soleil, and merely respired about five times in
a minute. It was impossible to remain; the people would have starved.
She was laid gently upon her litter, and we started forward on our
funeral course. I was ill and broken-hearted, and I followed by her side
through the long day's march over wild parklands and streams, with thick
forest and deep marshy bottoms; over undulating hills, and through
valleys of tall papyrus rushes, which, as we brushed through them on our
melancholy way, waved over the litter like the black plumes of a hearse.
We halted at a village, and again the night was passed in watching. I
was wet, and coated with mud from the swampy marsh, and shivered with
ague; but the cold within was greater than all. No change had taken
place; she had never moved. I had plenty of fat, and I made four balls
of about half a pound, each of which would burn for three hours. A piece
of a broken water-jar formed a lamp, several pieces of rag serving for
wicks. So in solitude the still calm night passed away as I sat by her
side and watched. 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.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 221 of 343
Words from 114325 to 114830
of 178435
