Page:The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton.djvu/164

134 back into the boat, and rowing ashore; and one day I was too hot, and I just had the strength to give the last pull to the oar ashore, when I fainted. There were no doctors, no medicines, and I lay ill on my very hard bed with a dreadful pain in my side for three weeks. But I was too strong to die; and one day somebody got me a bottle of Kirschwasser, and drinking it in small quantities at a time seemed to take away the pain; but I was very pale and ill, and every one said I had rheumatic fever. We were all three more or less ill, and did not like to part; but it was a necessity, so I was sent forward with twelve pieces of baggage and sixteen napoleons to work my way from Ouchy to Honfleur, where I was to wait for my brother-in-law and sister, Honfleur being a quieter place than Havre. Poor Blanche looked so worn and sad!

I got in a railway-carriage by myself, and asked the guard to look after me because I was alone; but just before the train started he put in a man, and begged my pardon, saying it was inevitable, as there was not a place in any other carriage. In about twenty minutes the man began to make horrible faces at me, and I was so dreadfully frightened I felt I must speak; so I said, "I am afraid you are ill"; and he said, "Yes; I am very sorry, but I am going to have an epileptic fit." He was almost immediately black, and in horrible contortions. It was an express train. There was no means of communicating with the guard (1858), and there was no use in screaming; so, frightened though I was, I pulled the man down on the ground, undid his cravat, and loosened all about his neck. I had no