He placed the
box on the seat beside him, and opened and examined its contents very
minutely.
"Yes, undisturbed; all safe, thank heaven!" he murmured. "There are
half-a-dozen letters here that I would not have some people read for a
great deal."
He now asked with a very kind anxiety all about the illness I complained
of. When he had heard me, he said:
"A friend of mine once had an attack as like yours as possible. It was
on board ship, and followed a state of high excitement. He was a brave
man like you; and was called on to exert both his strength and his
courage suddenly. An hour or two after, fatigue overpowered him, and he
appeared to fall into a sound sleep. He really sank into a state which
he afterwards described so that I think it must have been precisely the
same affection as yours."
"I am happy to think that my attack was not unique. Did he ever
experience a return of it?"
"I knew him for years after, and never heard of any such thing. What
strikes me is a parallel in the predisposing causes of each attack. Your
unexpected and gallant hand-to-hand encounter, at such desperate odds,
with an experienced swordsman, like that insane colonel of dragoons,
your fatigue, and, finally, your composing yourself, as my other friend
did, to sleep.
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