I followed mechanically, feeling that nothing could add to the intensity of my wretchedness. I assisted her from car to car, till, passing through heaps of mail bags, we reached the end of the coach where lay the still form of Ramie, wrapped in my travelling shawl. She kneeled by its side, and, turning back the shawl, gazed for a moment on the pallid face, and then, with a shriek that often now rings in my ears, fell forward insensible on the breast of her dead child. The mail agent came forward, and we tried all the usual restoratives without the slightest effect. No sign of returning animation responded to our efforts, and, making the best couch we could, we were about to lay her by Ramie’s side when the whistle sounded for Wilmington, and the train drew up close to the boat that was to take us over the river. The conductor and the captain of the boat aided me so kindly that the body of Ramie and his unconscious mother were conveyed on board without attracting very much attention. A carriage on the other side took us to the hotel, where I had concluded it was best to go since Mrs. DeVare had become unconscious. I ordered rooms, despatched one messenger for a physician and another for father; then, without waiting for them to come, I left the hotel and walked rapidly homeward, for I began to experience very singular sensations in mind and body—a tingling numbness, that deadened my extremities; and alternations of sudden forgetfulness of all that had occurred, and vivid remembrance of it. I reached our door, and pushing it open, found Carlotta in the hall. She started at my haggard face, and exclaimed:
“Oh! John, what is the matter? where is Mr. DeVare? what has happened?”
“He is dead!” I said, with a vacant stare; then, turning, rushed up stairs, heedless of her calls for mother. I managed to reach my bed, when I fell across it into a great black chasm of oblivion.
[CHAPTER XXVI.]
How strange those long days of insensibility now seem! How mysterious that vague consciousness of unconsciousness, when the mind closes all communication with the outer world, and lives in a state of semi-existence within itself! All sight was gone, yet a dull gray blank pressed down upon my eyeballs—gray and dull, though invisible; all hearing was gone, yet a singing sound lingered in my ears, as if a cap had been exploded near them; feeling there was none, yet an undefined pain and sickness pervaded my system, like a dream of deadly nausea. A gap in existence, a chasm in thought and sense, known through the veil of an uncertain consciousness! After a long while, as it seemed to me, vague, uncertain shadows began to flit across this dull blank before my vision. Gradually, after many flittings, they began to assume varying shapes; and, as the form and features of a negative slowly come into distinctness as the photographer washes the plate, so these shapes began to show distinctly as familiar forms and faces. But oh! how changed their expression! Those whom I had thought loved me most now wore the blackest scowl for me, and, pointing at me, called me Murderer! Father, mother and Carlotta stood around me constantly, regarding me with a fiendish malignity and hatred. But among all the faces that passed before me there was one that never changed its position or expression—always directly before me, almost touching mine; a face with a stony glare from its fixed eyes; a face with a snarl of hate on its white lips, from which bubbled a froth of blood; a face I could never escape, go where I would. I sprang over frightful precipices, I traversed burning deserts, I climbed rugged wilds, but everywhere, turning as I turned, that face was ever before me, freezing my blood with its hideous scowl. After awhile these visions became less distinct, and soon another blank succeeded, during which I one day unclosed my eyes and found everything familiar around me.
The room was darkened and silent. The occasional clicking of the coals in the grate, as they powdered their red cheeks with white ashes, and the foot-fall of a passer on the pavement below, were all the sounds I could hear. I tried to raise myself on my elbow to make out what it all meant, but I had scarcely made the effort when some one rose from a chair at the side of the bed, and Carlotta’s beautiful face bent over me, with an expression of anxious inquiry, as if she thought I was still delirious.
“Where—where have I been? How came I in bed?” I said, in a weak, drawling voice.
“Oh, you are yourself again!” she exclaimed, with a cry of delight; “let me run and tell Mrs. Smith.”