asking herself whether the chain was being fitted to her own
limbs, and whether, to save those she loved, she was to become this
man's slave.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

THE DREAMS OF A FEVER.

A dreamy sensation of cold and thick darkness and stumbling on and on,
with a dull light glowing about his head and fading away directly, then
more darkness and stumbling on, and once more a dull yellow glow, and
this fading away, with the darkness increasing. Then a slight struggle,
and a few petulant remonstrances.

Why wouldn't the doctor let him sleep?

Then another feeble struggle, a sensation of passing through the air, a
sudden plunge into the icy water, and then utter darkness, and a noise,
as if of thunder, in his ears.

But the sudden immersion was electric in its effect, sending a thrill
through nerve and muscle, though the brain remained still drowsily
inert, while the natural instinct of desire for life chased away the
helpless state of collapse; and Mark Heath, old athlete, expert swimmer,
man hardened by his life in the southern colony, rose to the surface,
and struck out, swimming slowly and mechanically, as if it were the
natural action of his muscles. On and on, breasting the icy water,
keeping just afloat, but progressing blindly where the tide willed; on
and on through the darkness, with the yellow fog hanging like a solid
bank a few feet above his head, as if the rushing of the water were
cutting the lower stratum away.

Now a yellow light shone weirdly through the mist, came into sight, and
after glowing for a moment on the murky current, died away.

On still, as if it were the tide--that last tide which sweeps away the
parting spirit--stroke after stroke, given mechanically; and then there
was another light--a dull red light, then an angry glow--a stain as of
blood upon the black water; and it, too, died away, but not till it had
bathed the upturned face with its crimson hue.

Onward still, the icy water thrilling the swimmer through and through,
but seeming to bring with it no dread, no sense of horror, no
recollection of the past, no fear of what was to come: the sensation was
that he was swimming as one swims without effort in a dream.

A blow from some dark slimy object along whose side he glided, and then
on once more.

Another blow against something which checked him for a time, and turned
him face downward, so that the thundering recommenced in his ears; there
was the sense of strangulation