Then the doctors fell into a lengthy dispute over the time lost.
Again Fletcher proposed to send to Zante for Dr. Thomas, but the doctors replied—
"It would be useless; before he could get here, your master will be either out of danger or dead."
In the meantime the disease grew worse, and Dr. Bruno advised a second bleeding. Fletcher broke it to his master that the two doctors deemed another bleeding indispensable, and this time Lord Byron did not make any resistance; he held out his arm and said—
"Here is my arm: they may do what they wish." Then he added, "Did I not tell you, Fletcher, that they do not understand anything at all about my illness!"
Byron grew weaker and weaker. On the 17th, they bled him in the morning, and twice again in the afternoon of the same day. He fainted away after each bleeding, and from that day he himself gave up all hope.
"I cannot sleep," he said to Fletcher, "and you know that I have not had any sleep for a week; now, it is a fact that a man cannot live without sleep for any length of time; after a time he goes mad, and nothing can save him. I would rather blow my brains out ten times than go mad. I am not afraid of death, I shall watch its approach with more composure than people would believe."
On the 18th, Byron was perfectly satisfied of his approaching end.
"I fear," he said to Fletcher, "that Tita and you will both fall ill with nursing me like this, day and night."