On the following morning, the 17th, the bleeding was repeated; for, although the rheumatic symptoms had been completely removed, the appearances of inflammation on the brain were now hourly increasing. Count Gamba, who had not for the last two days seen him, being confined to his own apartment by a sprained ankle, now contrived to reach his room. "His countenance," says this gentleman, "at once awakened in me the most dreadful suspicions. He was very calm; he talked to me in the kindest manner about my accident, but in a hollow, sepulchral tone. 'Take care of your foot,' said he; 'I know by experience how painful it must be.' I could not stay near his bed: a flood of tears rushed into my eyes, and I was obliged to withdraw." Neither Count Gamba, indeed, nor Fletcher, appear to have been sufficiently masters of themselves to do much else than weep during the remainder of this afflicting scene.
In addition to the bleeding, which was repeated twice on the 17th, it was thought right also to apply blisters to the soles of his feet. "When on the point of putting them on," says Mr. Millingen, "Lord Byron asked me whether it would answer the purpose to apply both on the same leg. Guessing immediately the motive that led him to ask this question, I told him that I would place them above the knees. 'Do so,' he replied."
It is painful to dwell on such details,--but we are now approaching the close. In addition to most of those sad varieties of wretchedness which surround alike the grandest and humblest deathbeds, there was also in the scene now passing around the dying Byron such a degree of confusion and uncomfort as renders it doubly dreary to contemplate. There having been no person invested, since his illness, with authority over the household, neither order nor quiet was maintained in his apartment. Most of the comforts necessary in such an illness were wanting; and those around him, either unprepared for the danger, were, like Bruno, when it came, bewildered by it; or, like the kind-hearted Fletcher and Count Gamba, were by their feelings rendered no less helpless.
"In all the attendants," says Parry, "there was the officiousness of zeal; but, owing to their ignorance of each other's language, their zeal only added to the confusion. This circumstance, and the want of common necessaries, made Lord Byron's apartment such a picture of distress and even anguish during the two or three last days of his life, as I never before beheld, and wish never again to witness."