“Where to, sir?” said Lancey.
“To the nearest spot,” I replied after a moment’s thought, “where I can lie down and sleep. I am dead beat, Lancey, for want of rest, and really feel unable for anything. If only I can snatch an hour or two, that will suffice. Meanwhile, you will go to the nearest station and find out if the railway has been destroyed.”
We hurried out of the dreadful slaughter-house, Ivanka still sound asleep on my shoulder, and soon discovered an outhouse in which was a little straw. Rolling some of this into a bundle for a pillow, I lay down so as not to disturb the sleeping child. Another moment and I too was steeped in that profound slumber which results from thorough physical and mental exhaustion.
Lancey went out, shut the door, fastened it, and left us.
Chapter Twenty Two.
The Fall of Plevna.
The events which followed the massacre in the Bulgarian village remain in my mind, and ever must remain as a confused dream, for I was smitten that night with a fever, during the course of which—part of it at least—I was either delirious or utterly prostrate.
And who can tell, save those who have passed through a similar condition, the agonies which I endured, and the amazing fancies by which I was assailed at that time! Of course I knew not where I was, and I cared not. My unbridled fancy led me everywhere. Sometimes I was in a bed, sometimes on horseback; now in hospital attending wounded people, most of whom I noticed were women or little children; then on a battle-field, cheering the combatants with all my power, or joining them, but, when I chanced to join them, it was never for the purpose of taking, but of saving life. Often I was visited by good spirits, and also by bad. One of these latter, a little one, made a deep impression on me. His particular mission seemed to lie in his power to present before me, within a flaming frame, pictures of whatever I wished to behold. He was wonderfully tractable at first, and showed me whatever I asked for,—my mother, Bella, Nicholas, and many of my friends,—but by degrees he insisted on showing what I did not wish to see, and among these latter pictures were fearful massacres, and scenes of torture and bloodshed. I have a faint recollection of being carried somewhere in a jolting wagon, of suffering from burning thirst which no one seemed to care to relieve, of frequent abrupt stoppages, while shouts, shrieks, and imprecations filled my ears; but whether these things were realities or fancies, or a mingling of both, I cannot tell, for assuredly the bad spirit never once succeeded in showing me any picture half so terrible as those realities of war which I had already beheld.