Page:The crater; or, Vulcan's peak.djvu/142

136 THE CRATER; felt he might not refrain unless he had something to occupy his mind for a few minutes. Taking a small swallow of the wine and water, he again got on his feet, and staggered to the drawer in which poor Caplain Crutchely had kept his linen. Here he got a shirt, and tottered on as far as the quarter-deck. Beneath the awning Mark had kept the section of a hogshead, as a bathing-tub, and for the pur pose of catching the rain-water that ran from the awning, Kitty often visiting the ship and drinking from this re servoir. The invalid found the tub full of fresh and sweet water, and throwing aside the shirt in which he had lain so long, he rather fell than seated himself in the water. After re maining a sufficient time to recover his breath, Mark washed his head, and long matted beard, and all parts of his frame, as well as his strength would allow. He must have remained in the water several minutes, when he ma naged to tear himself from it, as fearful of excess from this indulgence as from eating. The invalid now felt like a new man ! It is scarcely possible to express the change that came over his feelings, when he found himself purified from the effects of so long a confinement in a feverish bed, without change, or nursing of any sort. After drying him self as well as he could with a towel, though the breeze and the climate did that office for him pretty effectually, Mark put on the clean, fresh shirt, and tottered back to his own berth, where he fell on the mattress, nearly ex hausted. It was half-an-hour before he moved again, though all that time experiencing the benefits of the nou rishment taken, arid the purification undergone. The bath, moreover, had acted as a tonic, giving a stimulus to the whole system. At the end of the half hour, the young man took another mouthful of the biscuit, half emptied the tumbler, fell back on his pillow, and was soon in a sweet sleep. It was near sunset when Mark lost his consciousness on this occasion, rior did he recover it until the light of day was once more cheering the cabin. He had slept pro foundly twelve hours, and this so much the more readily from the circumstance that he had previously refreshed himself with a bath and clean linen. The first conscious-