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Meanwhile, every person present received his share of a half-rotten smoked pig, of the freshly killed pigs, yam, taro and sweet potatoes. The women took the entrails of the pigs, squeezed them out, rolled them up in banana leaves, and made them ready for cooking.
Nor did what little reasoning I could bring to bear upon my case, when from time to time I partly came out from the sort of lethargy that had hold of me, do much for my comforting. It was possible, I perceived, that I might find even in a long-wrecked ship some half-rotten scraps of old salted meat, or some remnant of musty flour, that at least would serve to keep life in me.
"Here, I say, sir, if we had known what a ramshackle old wreck this 'ere sampan is we should have stepped along pretty gingerly while we were poling at least I should, for it looks to me as if you could shove your foot through anywhere. Look at the sides! Why, they are half-rotten!" "Yes, Pete; it's a wonder that the boat did not go to pieces when we ran up against that other one in the night."
Still a little animal like that would be sure to go upwards, so Peter climbed the half-rotten ladder, and stood in the long dark range of lofts, peering among the rafters and ties in search of the bushy-tailed little creature.
Heat, dust, and drought wrought havoc in their columns; the pitiless northern sun left men and animals with little resisting power; the flying inhabitants devastated their fields, the horses and oxen gorged themselves on the half-rotten thatch of the abandoned huts, and died by the wayside; the gasping soldiery had no food but flesh. Dysentery raged, and soldiers died like flies.
In any event, they were not recently wed. He bowed to me, and then said to his companion: "Shall we sit down here?" "Very well." They seated themselves on the half-rotten trunk of a tree. "Are you on a trip?" he asked me, noticing my horse fastened to a branch. "Yes. I am coming back from a visit." "Ah! Are you the town doctor?" "Yes." "And do you live here, in Cestona?" "Yes, I live here."
The glow of the flames grew brighter . . . and showed me the half-rotten piles upholding the building, showed me the tidal mark upon the slime-coated walls showed me that there was no escape! By some subterranean duct the foul place was fed from the Thames. By that duct, with the outgoing tide, my body would pass, in the wake of Mason, Cadby, and many another victim!
Here, at the cradle, in this dark, icy hole, there was not a soul, not a taper, not a hymn, not a flower. Of the infrequent visitors who came thither, none knelt or prayed. All that a few tender-hearted pilgrims had done in their desire to carry away a souvenir had been to reduce to dust, between their fingers, the half-rotten plank serving as a mantelshelf.
On arriving upon the uppermost lobby these sounds became fully audible. 'This way, your honour, said my little conductress; at the same time, pushing open a door of patched and half-rotten plank, she admitted me into the squalid chamber of death and misery.
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