The Acrid Incrustations Sublimed From The
Escaping Gases Frequently Gave Way, Opening New Vents To Scald Us;
And, Fearing That
If at any time the wind should fall, carbonic acid,
which often formed a considerable portion of the gaseous exhalations
Of volcanoes, might collect in sufficient quantities to cause sleep
and death, I warned Jerome against forgetting himself for a single
moment, even should his sufferings admit of such a thing.
Accordingly, when during the long, dreary watches of the night we
roused from a state of half-consciousness, we called each other by
name in a frightened, startled way, each fearing the other might be
benumbed or dead. The ordinary sensations of cold give but a faint
conception of that which comes on after hard climbing with want of
food and sleep in such exposure as this. Life is then seen to be a
fire, that now smoulders, now brightens, and may be easily quenched.
The weary hours wore away like dim half-forgotten years, so long and
eventful they seemed, though we did nothing but suffer. Still the
pain was not always of that bitter, intense kind that precludes
thought and takes away all capacity for enjoyment. A sort of dreamy
stupor came on at times in which we fancied we saw dry, resinous logs
suitable for campfires, just as after going days without food men
fancy they see bread.
Frozen, blistered, famished, benumbed, our bodies seemed lost to us at
times - all dead but the eyes. For the duller and fainter we became
the clearer was our vision, though only in momentary glimpses.
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