When consciousness returned, and I opened my eyes, I found myself stretched upon a bed in a large and lofty room, very barely furnished, there being nothing in the apartment save the bed upon which I lay, a large old-fashioned wardrobe, a dressing-table, a small round table by my bedside, and two massive carved chairs upholstered in stamped leather which showed signs of having seen many years of service. It was night, apparently, for the only illumination came from a large handsome lamp that had the appearance of being wrought out of silver. One of the two chairs in the room stood by the side of my bed, and was occupied by a very respectable-looking negress of some forty years of age, or thereabout, sound asleep. Two jugs, one of porcelain and one of cut glass, stood on the table, in company with a large tumbler and a cup with a spoon in it. The glass jug was three-parts full of lemonade, if my eyes did not deceive me, and the sight of it suddenly caused me to become acutely conscious of the fact that I was athirst. Had the negress been awake I would have asked her to give me a drink, but seeing that she was sleeping the sleep of the just I decided to help myself, and with that intent essayed to raise myself in bed. But I might as well have attempted to lift the house itself, for when I came to move I discerned, to my consternation, that I was so weak I could scarcely stir hand or foot, much less raise my entire body. In my alarm and distress I unwittingly gave vent to a feeble groan, which, faint as it was, proved sufficient to arouse my attendant, who stirred in her chair, adjusted her turban, and then, rising to her feet, leaned over the bed and peered down into my face. For some seconds she stood thus, when—her eyes having adjusted themselves to the rather dim light of the lamp—she perceived that I was awake.
“Ah!” she murmured, in a half whisper, in Spanish, “the Señor is at length himself again, thanks be to all the blessed saints! And how are you feeling, Señor?”
“Very thirsty,” I replied, in the same language, which I spoke fairly well, and to my amazement, though I had intended to speak out loud, my voice was no more than a scarcely audible whisper, which the negress had to bend her head to catch.
“Bueno!” she ejaculated, with every evidence of keen satisfaction; “the Señor is thirsty—and he has the Spanish. He shall drink, and then,”—she laid her hand upon my forehead, and I now discovered, to my further astonishment, that my head was swathed in bandages—“yes, then the medicine, and more sleep.”
So saying, she filled the big tumbler with lemonade—how delicious it looked with the thin shreds of lemon and the leaves of mint floating on its surface!—passed her arm very gently beneath my shoulders, raised me to a semi-sitting posture, and applied the tumbler to my lips.
Oh! how good, how delicious, how refreshing was that long, cool draught; how grateful to the parched palate its exquisite acidity of flavour! You talk of nectar; but my belief at that moment was that nectar was merely lemonade under another name! I smacked my lips audibly as I gasped for breath after emptying the tumbler, and my sable friend smiled with satisfaction. Then, still holding me, she poured about a wine-glassful of very dark-brown—almost black—liquid from the porcelain jug into the cup and presented it to me. This, too, I drank, for I was still thirsty; but the “medicine” was by no means so palatable as the lemonade, being of an exceedingly pungent, bitter taste, and I am afraid I made a rather wry face as the negress removed the cup from my lips.
“Ah!” she murmured smilingly, “the Señor does not like that so well as the lemonade, but it is nevertheless the better drink of the two, for it will kill the fever in his blood and give him back his strength, while the lemonade merely refreshes.”
Then, as she gently laid me back on my pillow, and adjusted the sheet—my only covering—about my throat, she continued: “Now the Señor must sleep; and when he awakes Mama Elisa will have some nice nourishing broth ready for him—very good, ah! very good indeed, to make him strong again.”
Whether it was the comfort and refreshment that followed the slaking of my thirst, the effect of the medicine which my kind-hearted nurse had administered, or the cooling night breeze that swept in through the open window and played freely over me, I cannot say,—possibly it might have been a combination of the three,—but, whatever the cause, true it is that my head was scarcely back on the pillow before I sank into a profound and most refreshing sleep, refreshing both to mind and body; for during the hours of unconsciousness that followed my brain remained absolutely quiescent, and I was no longer disturbed or harassed by the vague yet terrifying phantasies, dim memories of which had haunted me during the few minutes of my wakefulness.
When I next opened my eyes the room in which I lay was flooded with brilliant sunshine, that streamed in through a large open window in the wall that faced me, and which also freely admitted an indescribably refreshing breeze, richly laden with the mingled perfumes of a tropical garden. A spray of rose bush, laden with magnificent crimson blooms, swished to and fro before the window, swayed by the breeze, and wafted dashes of its scent-laden breath toward me; and beyond it there stretched a vista of flowering shrubs, orange and banana trees, the straight smooth stems of palms, part of the gigantic trunk of a silk-cotton tree springing from a smooth sward of guinea grass; and beyond it again a thicket of bamboo, the delicate feathery foliage of which closed the view. Splendid butterflies flitted hither and thither, a few humming-birds, poised upon their swiftly-fanning wings, hung over the flowering plants, like living gems, sipping the nectar of the blooms; and occasionally a brilliant green lizard would dart along the broad window-sill in chase of a fly.