ship carrying live pigs had gone to pieces, and the shore was sprinkled
with porcine corpses.
Presently I found myself back at the
how I had returned. The dyspepsia—I clung to this hypothesis—was
growing so violent that I had difficulty in breathing: before long I
found it impossible to stand.
My hostess was summoned, and she told me that Cotrone had “a great
physician,” by name “Dr. Scurco.” Translating this name from dialect
into Italian, I presumed that the physician’s real name was Sculco, and
this proved to be the case. Dr. Riccardo Sculco was a youngish man,
with an open, friendly countenance. At once I liked him. After an
examination, of which I quite understood the result, he remarked in his
amiable, airy manner that I had “a touch of rheumatism”; as a simple
matter of precaution, I had better go to bed for the rest of the day,
and, just for the form of the thing, he would send some medicine.
Having listened to this with as pleasant a smile as I could command, I
caught the Doctor’s eye, and asked quietly, “Is there much congestion?”
His manner at once changed; he became businesslike and confidential.
The right lung; yes, the right lung. Mustn’t worry; get to bed and take
my quinine in
The second visit I but dimly recollect. There was a colloquy between
the Doctor and my hostess, and the word
repeatedly; also I heard again “
was perhaps the most horrible I ever passed. Crushed with a sense of
uttermost fatigue, I could get no rest. From time to time a sort of
doze crept upon me, and I said to myself, “Now I shall sleep”; but on
the very edge of slumber, at the moment when I was falling into
oblivion, a hand seemed to pluck me back into consciousness. In the
same instant there gleamed before my eyes a little circle of fire,
which blazed and expanded into immensity, until its many-coloured glare
beat upon my brain and thrilled me with torture. No sooner was the
intolerable light extinguished than I burst into a cold sweat; an icy
river poured about me; I shook, and my teeth chattered, and so for some
minutes I lay in anguish, until the heat of fever re-asserted itself,
and I began once more to toss and roll. A score of times was this
torment repeated. The sense of personal agency forbidding me to sleep
grew so strong that I waited in angry dread for that shock which
aroused me; I felt myself haunted by a malevolent power, and rebelled
against its cruelty.
Through the night no one visited me. At eight in the morning a knock
sounded at the door, and there entered the waiter, carrying a tray with
my ordinary breakfast. “The Signore is not well?” he remarked, standing
to gaze at me. I replied that I was not quite well; would he give me
the milk, and remove from my sight as quickly as possible all the other
things on the tray. A glimpse of butter in its cheese-rind had given me
an unpleasant sensation. The goat’s milk I swallowed thankfully, and,
glad of the daylight, lay somewhat more at my ease awaiting Dr. Sculco.
He arrived about half-past nine, and was agreeably surprised to find me
no worse. But the way in which his directions had been carried out did
