its side. For five successive days I took him in my arms from his bed in
the hut to the couch outside, and back again at sunset, after which time
he was too much debilitated to be lifted from the bed on which he lay.
He attempted to write once, and but once, during his illness; but before
paper and ink could be brought him, he had sunk back on his pillow,
completely exhausted by his ineffectual attempt to sit up in his bed.
Fancying by various symptoms he had been poisoned, I asked him one day
whether he thought that, in any of his visits the Arabs or Tuaricks, any
poisonous ingredients had been put into the camel's milk they had given
him, of which he was particularly fond. He replied, "No, my dear boy; no
such thing has been done, I assure you. Do you remember," he continued,
"that when on a shooting excursion at Magaria, in the early part of
February, after walking the whole of the day, exposed to the scorching
rays of the sun, I was fatigued, and lay down under the branches of a
tree for some time? The earth was soft and wet, and from that hour to
the present I have not been free from cold: this has brought on my
present disorder, from which, I believe, I shall never recover."

For twenty days my poor master remained in a low and distressed state.
He told me he felt no pain; but this was spoken only to comfort me, for
he saw I was dispirited. His sufferings must have been acute. During
this time he was gradually, but perceptibly, declining; his body,
from being robust and vigorous, became weak and emaciated, and indeed
was little better than a skeleton. I was the only person, with one
exception, he saw in his sickness. Abderachman, an Arab from Fezzan,
came to him one day, and wished to pray with him, after the manner of
his countrymen, but was desired to leave the apartment instantly. His
sleep was uniformly short and disturbed, and troubled with frightful
dreams. In them he frequently reproached the Arabs aloud with much
bitterness; but being an utter stranger to the language, I did not