“My name,” she continued, “is Correliana Adinope, daughter of the Prætor Adinope, in body deceased, and step-daughter to Adestus the present Prætor. The city has sustained a constant siege for centuries by the savages in revenge for the wrongs committed against them by our ancestors. Its inhabitants are at the present time in the extremity of distress from pestilence engendered by famine. While endeavoring to obtain remedial plants without the city walls I was made prisoner by a band of our besiegers, and was rescued immediately by these fugitives, whom in turn you have saved from destruction.”
Having satisfied in outline the curiosity of M. Hollydorf, she begged that safe means of rest might be afforded her protectors, for they had been constantly harassed for weeks without an hour’s undisturbed sleep. But long before the preparations were completed for a comfortable resting place, Correliana and the wounded were the only ones that remained awake.
Waantha, assisted by the guacâcioes of the crew, collected from the hair and mouths of the dead Indians antidotes, and from the growths of the river bank counteractive remedies, which relieved the excruciating pain of the wounded, and stayed the progress of gangrenous putrefaction. At sunset all the rescued were in a deep lethargic sleep, and as the night was pleasant, and the glade where they lay was open to the river, with a day draught that freed it from miasm, but little fear was apprehended from their exposure, notwithstanding the tattered condition of their clothing. Fortunately, before the evening was far advanced, the captain bethought himself of his trading stock, from which he soon obtained fabrics well adapted for their protection. Mr. Dow, restored to the full vigor of ambitious vitality, busied himself in organizing a guard for the protection of the mules and horses, listening the while to Aabrawa’s relation of their owner’s source, for he had recognized them as belonging to a colony located far to the eastward of his place of nativity, who were known to his people by the name of Bamboyles. Mr. Dow viewing his night charge as the keys destined to unlock the gates of his New Jerusalem, he picketed them in the most verdant portion of the glade. When morning dawned his fears were startled to find them still prone with scarcely a sign of vitality; and as his attempts to arouse them failed to elicit more than a drowsy snort he feared that with all his vigilance they had been poisoned, but was reassured by Dr. Baāhar, who pronounced their immobile condition as lethargic, induced from hunger and fatigue.