And, so saying, he left the cabin, to return a few minutes later, accompanied by the surgeon and his assistant, François, the mulatto boy. With the utmost care on the part of Fonseca, and to the accompaniment of sundry maledictions in Spanish, muttered under his breath by Ricardo as I involuntarily winced now and then during the process, my wound was laid bare and carefully examined. It was by this time terribly inflamed and horribly painful, and I seemed to gather, from the grave and anxious look on Fonseca’s face, that he regarded it as somewhat serious. He said nothing, however, but gave it a very thorough fomentation, dressed it, and carefully bound it up again. This done he administered a sleeping draught, and left me in charge of François, to whom he gave certain whispered instructions which I could not catch. When he presently retired, Ricardo followed him out of the cabin, and I saw him no more that night, for the sleeping draught, though somewhat long in operating, had its effect at last, and I sank into a feverish, troubled sleep, in which I was vexed by all sorts of fantastic fancies, in some of which my mother and the man Ricardo seemed to be associated together most incongruously. Then there were moments when I seemed to awake to find Ricardo and Fonseca bending over me anxiously, and others in which I appeared to be sitting up in my cot and talking the veriest nonsense to François, who, on such occasions, seemed to be entreating me, with tears in his eyes, to lie down again and remain quiet. Then ensued further phantasmagoria of the most extravagant description, of which I subsequently remembered little or nothing save that I seemed to be consumed with fever, that liquid fire was rushing through my veins instead of blood, and that I was continually tormented by an unquenchable thirst.
This state of discomfort endured for ages—apparently; in reality, however, it lasted only a week, at the end of which period I emerged from my delirium to find myself comfortably, nay, luxuriously, disposed upon a large bed in a spacious room overlooking an extensive garden, gorgeous with strange and brilliant-hued flowers and fragrant with their mingled perfumes, which sloped very gently down to a sandy beach, beyond which was visible, through the wide-open casements of the apartment, a wide stretch of landlocked water, in the centre of which floated the hull of a vessel that I had no difficulty in identifying as the Barracouta. The room which I occupied was elegantly furnished. Its walls were decorated with several oil paintings that, to my uneducated eye at least, appeared to be exceedingly good, and dotted about the room here and there were little tables upon each of which stood a vase of magnificent flowers. This was the scene upon which my eyes opened as I awoke from the first natural sleep that had visited me since that disastrous day when I had been struck down upon the deck of the pirate brig, and I lay for some minutes motionless, drinking in the beauty and the delight of it all, and revelling lazily in the sensation of relief from pain and fever that I was now enjoying.
Then, as I unconsciously sighed with excess of pleasure, I became aware of a slight movement beside the bed, and, glancing round, I perceived a middle-aged negress bending over me and looking anxiously into my eyes.
“Bueno! The señor is himself again at last!” she exclaimed in accents of great satisfaction as she placed her cool hand upon my brow for a moment, and then proceeded to smooth my rebellious locks with a tenderness that was almost caressing. “Yes,” she continued, “the fever has quite gone, and now the señor has nought to do save to get well and strong again as soon as possible.” She spoke in Spanish, and her accent and manner were those of one who had been accustomed all her life to associate with cultured people.
“Who are you, pray?” I demanded in the same language, “and where am I?”
“I am Mammy,” she answered, “the old nurse of the señorita, and Señor Ricardo’s housekeeper. And you are now in Señor Ricardo’s own house—ay, and in his own room, too! What is the young English señor to Señor Ricardo, I wonder, that he should be cared for thus?”
I scarcely knew whether this last remark was in the nature of a soliloquy, or whether I was to take it as a question addressed to me, but I treated it as the latter, and replied:
“I really do not know, Mammy, but—stop a moment; let me think—yes—I seem to remember—or did I dream it?—that Captain Ricardo said he—had—once known my mother! But, no, that cannot be possible, I must have dreamed it—and yet—no—that part of it scarcely seems to be a dream!”
“No matter, no matter,” answered Mammy musingly; “we shall doubtless know the truth sooner or later. Now, señor, it is past the time when you ought to have taken your medicine, but you were sleeping so peacefully that I could not bring myself to wake you. Take it now; it is a sovereign remedy for all kinds of fever; I never yet knew it to fail; and then, if you are thirsty, you may have just one glass of sangaree!”
I took the potion and swallowed it obediently; it had an intensely but not altogether disagreeable bitter taste; and then I quaffed the generous tumbler of sangaree that the old lady handed me. Oh, that sangaree! I had never tasted it before, and though I have often since then drunk the beverage I have never again enjoyed a draught so much as I did that particular one; it was precisely my idea of nectar!