That very night, Mr Richard was seized with an
alarming illness, and in twenty-four hours was stricken with a
raging fever.
CHAPTER 64
Tossing to and fro upon his hot, uneasy bed; tormented by a fierce
thirst which nothing could appease; unable to find, in any change
of posture, a moment's peace or ease; and rambling, ever, through
deserts of thought where there was no resting-place, no sight or
sound suggestive of refreshment or repose, nothing but a dull
eternal weariness, with no change but the restless shiftings of his
miserable body, and the weary wandering of his mind, constant still
to one ever-present anxiety--to a sense of something left undone,
of some fearful obstacle to be surmounted, of some carking care
that would not be driven away, and which haunted the distempered
brain, now in this form, now in that, always shadowy and dim, but
recognisable for the same phantom in every shape it took: darkening
every vision like an evil conscience, and making slumber horrible--
in these slow tortures of his dread disease, the unfortunate
Richard lay wasting and consuming inch by inch, until, at last,
when he seemed to fight and struggle to rise up, and to be held
down by devils, he sank into a deep sleep, and dreamed no more.
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