“No, I can manage better alone, and you need to warm yourself,” said I, and without waiting longer I stooped to the old man again, and now with much greater ease managed, by putting my arms around him, to lift him and carry him to the house, where I laid him down on the floor, and immediately went to the beacon-fire near which the girl was seated. I secured two half-burned pieces of wood, and returning to the house built a rousing good fire in the chimney, and lighted a candle. Then as rapidly as I could do so I stripped off his clothes and rolled him in a dry blanket on a couch of grass.
“Are you more comfortable now?”
For answer came the abortive flicker, as of a throttled smile, and he closed and opened his eyes once or twice as though assenting.
“Can’t you speak at all?”
A sort of struggle seemed to come over his face; then he closed his eyes and held them shut for a moment. It then dawned upon me that the man was suffering from a paralytic stroke. Up to this time, without giving the matter any particular attention, I had thought that perhaps he was merely suffering from chill and exhaustion, and several times during my tremendous struggle with his weight it had been on my tongue to urge him to exert himself for his own sake. Now the awful nature of his condition, his utter helplessness, the mental torture he must have endured and be yet enduring, came upon me and must have shown itself in my face; for as he looked at me he closed his eyes again in the same manner as before. There he lay swathed in the blanket, his intelligence intact, perfectly able to see all that went on around him, and to realize his situation and condition, doubtless also fully alive, so far as sensation went, to every pain and discomfort, and yet utterly unable to stir hand or foot or speak a word. Even distorted as his face was, there was the stamp of a noble, generous nature upon it, and a venerable benevolence yet shone forth from every feature. What a terrible fate was this. I was moved to deepest pity by the contemplation of it.
I placed my hand upon his forehead and said gently, “Be assured and rest easy now. I will go and bring your daughter here and see that she is made comfortable. Here are food and shelter for you both, and you are most heartily welcome to it and to my best assistance.”
I found the daughter sitting on the sand before the fire, her wet garments already steaming from the heat. I told her that her father was as comfortable as it was possible to make him, and that she had better go to him and see if she could not get off some of her wet garments. In the mean time I would get some food warm for them both.
“For pity’s sake,” said she in a tremulous and vibrant voice, “let me have some water. We have been three days without water except what you gave us.”
Without waiting to reproach myself for not doing sooner what I should have known from personal experience was the thing to do, I ran to my boat and got a gourd full and held it for her to drink. I then went with her to the house and gave the old man a long drink.
The girl then said to me that on board there was a trunk containing her clothing, and that she would be glad if she could have it; that as there were several chests and trunks stowed under the deck forward, I would know hers by such and such marks and peculiarities. I went down and got the trunk, and moreover took out a chest and another trunk, which I put under the work-shed, bringing her trunk up to the house. I had afterward to be again called to get it open for her, as the key could not be turned by her slender fingers.