first-class carriage, and that the young lady made no complaint to the officials whatever on arriving at the station.
“There is some fearful mystery in all this,” thought Madame Steindorf, “and I must have it cleared up somehow.”
The first point to be attended to, however, was the restoration of the poor girl herself, for the doctor added, “that he was afraid of fever setting in now that some slight symptoms of reaction began to manifest themselves; the pulse had been getting quicker and stronger all day, and if he were not much mistaken, the girl would be in a state of delirium that night—and then it would be impossible to say which way the case might go.”
The physician was right. Some hour or two before midnight Helen Boyne was raving, and describing ugly apparitions: now of some man with a red beard, who was pointing a revolver at her head, and now of another with black ringlets, who was blindfolding her eyes. At one time she was begging of the man to spare her life, and the next minute swearing a solemn oath never to divulge his secret.
Madame Steindorf sat patiently by Helen’s bedside, bathing her burning and throbbing temples, and giving her cool drinks whenever she could get her to take them; but never for a moment venturing to divert the current of her dreams, for she knew that by letting her rave on, and afterwards putting together the disjointed sentences uttered in her wanderings, she would be soon able to make out the puzzle, if not to bring the ruffian within reach of justice.
And so it happened. In the course of that long night Madame Steindorf had, with the doctor’s assistance, obtained sufficient clue to give information to the police as to the disguise of the runaway government defaulter, and with their aid telegraphic despatches were forwarded to each of the German ports trading with America, and before many days had passed news was received that the culprit had been arrested at Bremen while in the act of boarding a vessel that had already hoisted sail for New York.
It was long after that before Helen Boyne was well enough to resume her journey to Hamburg, and when she did she travelled thither in company with her cousin—and not in a first-class carriage, assuredly.
“For the future, my dear,” said Madame Steindorf, as they paid for their tickets at the Hannover Station, “we will leave the first-class for ‘Englishmen and madmen.’”
FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE’S LATEST CHARITY.
The story of the appointment of a Sanitary Commission, to inquire into the facts of the health of our army in India has been told so often, within a few weeks, in parliament and through the press, that I need not repeat it here. Suffice it that till now there has been a sacrifice of life and health in India which nobody seems to have thought of controlling by any system of management, founded on clear principles, and conducted by qualified persons. The inquiring Commissioners have now satisfied themselves, and everybody who reads the evidence they have presented, that the great mortality which has been supposed to belong to India is no more necessary in India than anywhere else; and that people would die off anywhere in the world as they die off in India, if they were exposed to the same dangers. It is now settled beyond dispute that it is not the heat of India which makes our soldiers, and their wives and children, and the civilians from this country, and the natives themselves, sicken and die. It is now proved that the heat, of itself, offers no obstacle to man or woman of any race living to a good old age, and dying easily and quietly at last, in the very hottest part of the interior of India. It is only when combined with other influences that heat is perilous and fatal; and the two other conditions which, in conjunction with heat, create the tremendous mortality of India, are actually within our own power. The peculiar mortality, then, is needless: the health of our troops, and of our fellow-citizens there, English and native, is in our own power; and we from this moment, become answerable for all destruction of life and health in India which may be prevented by means clearly pointed out to us.
The two incidents which, together with heat, create the diseases which sweep away the majority of victims are—moisture, and decaying vegetation. The heat we cannot help. The other two mischiefs we can control: but it must be done in a comprehensive and systematic way. A bit of drainage here, and a bit of sweeping there, in such stations as happen to be blessed with a wise commanding-officer, will not extinguish the four great diseases,—the fevers, the dysentery, the liver complaints, and the cholera,—which among them make up the far-famed mortality of India. The Commissioners therefore recommend that a new Department of Government shall be set up, charged with the care of the health of the community, military and civil, native and European. We have now—thanks to Sidney Herbert—such a department organised for the preservation of our army at home and in the colonies. The proposal now is that two members of the Indian Council in England shall join the Home Commission, in order to learn all that is known, and see what can be done for the preservation of health on a large scale: and that each of the three Indian Presidencies shall have a Commission, consisting of members duly qualified to see to the drainage of the soil, the supply of pure water, the healthiness of the military stations, and of the construction of barracks and camps, the cleansing and paving of the towns, the institution of proper hospitals, and the provision of such occupations and amusements for the soldiers as may promote vigour of body and mind.
After getting together all the evidence they could think of or desire, the investigating Commissioners put it into the hands of Miss Nightingale, to whom the institution of the whole inquiry is in great measure due—requesting her to comment on it for their guidance. They wisely and fortunately chose to print her commentary with their Report. It is to be hoped that it will also be published separately, that it may convey some very