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CHAPTER III.
IDRIS stirred and awoke; alas! she awoke to misery. She saw the signs of
disease on my countenance, and wondered how she could permit the long night
to pass without her having sought, not cure, that was impossible, but
alleviation to my sufferings. She called Adrian; my couch was quickly
surrounded by friends and assistants, and such medicines as were judged
fitting were administered. It was the peculiar and dreadful distinction of
our visitation, that none who had been attacked by the pestilence had
recovered. The first symptom of the disease was the death-warrant, which in
no single instance had been followed by pardon or reprieve. No gleam of
hope therefore cheered my friends.
While fever producing torpor, heavy pains, sitting like lead on my limbs,
and making my breast heave, were upon me; I continued insensible to every
thing but pain, and at last even to that. I awoke on the fourth morning as
from a dreamless sleep. An irritating sense of thirst, and, when I strove
to speak or move, an entire dereliction of power, was all I felt.
For three days and nights Idris had not moved from my side. She
administered to all my wants, and never slept nor rested. She did not hope;
and therefore she neither endeavoured to read the physician's countenance,
nor to watch for symptoms of recovery. All her thought was to attend on me
to the last, and then to lie down and die beside me. On the third night
animation was suspended; to the eye and touch of all I was dead. With
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