Page 77 - for-the-term-of-his-natural-life

CHAPTER VII.

TYPHUS FEVER.

he felon Rufus Dawes had stretched himself in his bunk
Tand tried to sleep. But though he was tired and sore, and
his head felt like lead, he could not but keep broad awake.
The long pull through the pure air, if it had tired him, had
revived him, and he felt stronger; but for all that, the fatal
sickness that was on him maintained its hold; his pulse beat
thickly, and his brain throbbed with unnatural heat. Ly-
ing in his narrow space—in the semi-darkness—he tossed
his limbs about, and closed his eyes in vain—he could not
sleep. His utmost efforts induced only an oppressive stag-
nation of thought, through which he heard the voices of his
fellow-convicts; while before his eyes was still the burning
Hydaspes—that vessel whose destruction had destroyed for
ever all trace of the unhappy Richard Devine.
It was fortunate for his comfort, perhaps, that the man
who had been chosen to accompany him was of a talkative
turn, for the prisoners insisted upon hearing the story of
the explosion a dozen times over, and Rufus Dawes himself
had been roused to give the name of the vessel with his own
lips. Had it not been for the hideous respect in which he
was held, it is possible that he might have been compelled to
give his version also, and to join in the animated discussion

For the Term of His Natural Life