It was a long, low shed, open on all sides. Twelve bodies lay there. In the middle of the row was Edith. She was more beautiful than an angel. A smile wreathed her lips; her eyes looked as though she slumbered. I rushed up to her and caught her in my arms. The next moment I fell senseless.
When I revived I was lying in one of the sick-sheds, with a crowd of sufferers around me. I had only one thought, and that was Edith. I rose at once, weak and trembling, but the resolve of my soul gave strength to my body. An awful fear had taken possession of me, which was accompanied by a certain wild hope. I hurried, with staggering feet, to the dead-house.
All the bodies were gone. New ones had come in.
“Where is she?” I cried to the old woman who had charge there. She knew to whom I referred.
“Buried,” said she.
I burst out into a torrent of imprecations. “Where have they buried her? Take me to the place!” I cried, as I flung a piece of gold to the woman. She grasped it eagerly. “Bring a spade, and come quick, for God’s sake! She is not dead!”
How did I have such a mad fancy? I will tell you. This ship-fever often terminates in a sort of stupor, in which death generally takes place. Sometimes, however, the patient who has fallen into this stupor revives again. It is known to the physicians as the “trance state.” I had seen cases of this at sea. Several times people were thrown overboard when I thought that they did not have all the signs of death, and at last, in two cases of which I had charge, I detained the corpses three days, in spite of the remonstrances of the other passengers. These two revived. By this I knew that some of those who were thrown overboard were not dead. Did I feel horror at this, my Teresa? No. “Pass away,” I said, “unhappy ones. You are not dead. You live in a better life than this. What matters it whether you died by the fever or by the sea?”
But when I saw Edith as she lay there my soul felt assured that she was not dead, and an unutterable convulsion of sorrow overwhelmed me. Therefore I fainted. The horror of that situation was too much for me. To think of that angelic girl about to be covered up alive in the ground; to think of that sweet young life, which had begun so brightly, terminating amidst such black darkness!
“Now God help me!” I cried, as I hurried on after the woman; “and bring me there in time.” There! Where? To the place of the dead. It was there that I had to seek her.
“How long had she been in that house before I fainted?” I asked, fearfully.