So, satisfied and thankful for what I now did know, and in the hope of learning all to-morrow, I took the draught, turned on my sound side, and slept in Elysium.
*****
Next morning, when I awoke, the sun had already risen, and shone cheerily through the open casement. Several black female domestics were busy setting the room in which I lay in order, and a middle-aged respectable-looking white woman employed in sewing, now occupied the chair in which the ghost of De Walden sat the previous night, while busied in the etherial occupation of eating pine-apple and drinking vin-de-grave.
Seeing I was awake, she spoke—"I hope you feel yourself better this morning; you have had a very quiet night, sir, Mr Peak says."
"Thank you, I do feel wonderfully refreshed. Pray, are you one of the family?"
"No, sir, I am the wife of the captain of the American brig, whose crew you, and your friend Mr Lanyard, saved from perishing of thirst."
"What! are you the poor woman whom I found in the cabin with her child?"
"I am, sir; and I hope heaven will reward you for it. My husband has been here often, sir, to enquire after you. His vessel is consigned to Mr Duquesné, sir; how happy he will be to find you so much better, when he calls at dinner time to-day!"
"How came it that I was carried into this house? Mr Duquesné's, I believe—a Frenchman, from the name?"
"You were wounded close to it, sir, and the marine who found you, thinking you were dying, requested the guard, after they had taken the man who stabbed you, to allow you to be carried in here; and I thank Heaven that you have fallen into such good hands, and that I have had it in my power to be of some use to you, as a sick-nurse."