had all but forsaken! Twenty
times a day I looked for evidence of progress, and twenty times a day I
doubted--sometimes even despaired; but the moment I recalled the mental
picture of her as I found her, hope revived.

Several weeks had passed thus, when one night, after lying a long time
awake, I rose, thinking to go out and breathe the cooler air; for,
although from the running of the stream it was always fresh in the cave,
the heat was not seldom a little oppressive. The moon outside was full,
the air within shadowy clear, and naturally I cast a lingering look on
my treasure ere I went. "Bliss eternal!" I cried aloud, "do I see her
eyes?" Great orbs, dark as if cut from the sphere of a starless night,
and luminous by excess of darkness, seemed to shine amid the glimmering
whiteness of her face. I stole nearer, my heart beating so that I feared
the noise of it startling her. I bent over her. Alas, her eyelids were
close shut! Hope and Imagination had wrought mutual illusion! my heart's
desire would never be! I turned away, threw myself on the floor of the
cave, and wept. Then I bethought me that her eyes had been a little
open, and that now the awful chink out of which nothingness had peered,
was gone: it might be that she had opened them for a moment, and was
again asleep!--it might be she was awake and holding them close! In
either case, life, less or more, must have shut them! I was comforted,
and fell fast asleep.

That night I was again bitten, and awoke with a burning thirst.

In the morning I searched yet more thoroughly, but again in vain. The
wound was of the same character, and, as before, was nearly well by the
evening. I concluded that some large creature of the leech kind came
occasionally from the hot stream. "But, if blood be its object," I said
to myself, "so long as I am there, I need hardly fear for my treasure!"

That same morning, when, having peeled a grape as usual and taken away
the seeds, I put it in her mouth, her lips made a slight movement of
reception, and I KNEW she lived!

My hope was now so much stronger that I began to think of some attire
for her: she must be able to rise the moment she wished! I betook myself
therefore to the forest, to investigate what material it might afford,
and had hardly begun to look when fibrous skeletons, like those of the
leaves of the prickly pear, suggested themselves as fit for the purpose.
I gathered a stock of them, laid them to dry in the sun, pul