We were sighted long before nightfall by a trading vessel, were
taken on board, and landed at Cartagena in Spain. Alfred never
held up his head, and never once spoke to me of his own accord
the whole time we were at sea in the merchantman. I observed,
however, with alarm, that he talked often and incoherently to
himself--constantly muttering the lines of the old
prophecy--constantly referring to the fatal place that was empty
in Wincot vault--constantly repeating in broken accents, which it
affected me inexpressibly to hear, the name of the poor girl who
was awaiting his return to England. Nor were these the only
causes for the apprehension that I now felt on his account.
Toward the end of our voyage he began to suffer from alternations
of fever-fits and shivering-fits, which I ignorantly imagined to
be attacks of ague. I was soon undeceived. We had hardly been a
day on shore before he became so much worse that I secured the
best medical assistance Cartagena could afford. For a day or two
the doctors differed, as usual, about the nature of his
complaint, but ere long alarming symptoms displayed themselves.
The medical men declared that his life was in danger, and told me
that his disease was brain fever.
Shocked and grieved as I was, I hardly knew how to act at first
under the fresh responsibility now laid upon me.
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