little basin, I sat down and bled into it a great deal,
and as the blood ran from me I came to myself, and the violence of the
flame or the fever I was in abated, and so did the ravenous part of
the hunger.

"Then I grew sick, and retched to vomit, but could not, for I had
nothing in my stomach to bring up. After I had bled some time I swooned,
and they all believed I was dead; but I came to myself soon after, and
then had a most dreadful pain in my stomach, not to be described, not
like the colic, but a gnawing eager pain for food, and towards night it
went off with a kind of earnest wishing or longing for food, something
like, as I suppose, the longing of a woman with child. I took another
draught of water with sugar in it, but my stomach loathed the sugar, and
brought it all up again; then I took a draught of water without sugar,
and that stayed with me, and I laid me down upon the bed, praying most
heartily that it would please God to take me away; and composing my mind
in hopes of it, I slumbered awhile; and then waking, thought myself
dying, being light with vapours from an empty stomach: I recommended my
soul to God, and earnestly wished that somebody would throw me into
the sea.

"All this while my mistress lay by me just, as I thought, expiring, but
bore it with much more patience than I, and gave the last bit of bread
she had to her child, my young master, who would not have taken it, but
she obliged him to eat it, and I believe it saved his life.

"Towards the morning I slept again, and first when I awaked I fell into
a violent passion of crying, and after that had a second fit of violent
hunger, so that I got up ravenous, and in a most dreadful condition. Had
my mistress been dead, so much as I loved her, I am certain I should
have eaten a piece of her flesh with as much relish and as unconcerned
as ever I did the flesh of any creature appointed for food; and once or
twice I was going to bite my own arm. At last I saw the basin in which
was the blood had bled at my nose the day before; I ran to it, and
swallowed it with such haste, and such a greedy appetite, as if I had
wondered nobody had taken it before, and afraid it should be taken
from me now.

"Though after it was down the thoughts of it filled me with horror, yet
it checked the fit of hunger, and I drank a draught of fair water, and
was composed and refreshed for some hours, after it. This was the fourth
day; and thus I held it till towards nigh