Every soul I believe shrieked, except myself and perhaps Frank Henley.
Never had I so much need of the fortitude to which I have endeavoured
to habituate my mind.
The gentlemen all ran to the side of the rock.--They saw Clifton, after
rising to the surface, sink! He had jumped from a place where the
shelving of the rock, under water, by projecting had stunned him as he
fell.
Frank perceived the danger: he threw off his hat and coat, and ran to
another part, where the height was still more dreadful! Indeed, Louisa,
it excites horror to look at the place! But he seems to be superior to
fear. He plunged down what might well be called an abyss; and, after
rising for a few seconds to breathe, dived again in search of poor
Clifton.
He was twice obliged to rise and take breath. The third time he found
him, rose with him, turned him upon his own back, and swam with him a
very considerable distance before he could find a place shallow enough
to land.
To all appearance Clifton was lifeless! But the excellent, most
excellent when you shall hear all, the heroic Frank immediately applied
himself to the remainder of his office. He stayed not a moment to rest,
but lifted him a seeming corpse from the earth, threw him once more on
his back, and ran faster than any of us to the chateau, carried him up
stairs, undressed him himself, put him between the blankets, and gave
every necessary order with as much presence of mind as if there had
been neither accident nor danger. Wet as he was he lost not a thought
upon himself.
Never shall I forget the indefatigable assiduity with which he laboured
to restore your brother to life; the anxiety which he struggled to
conceal; the variety of means he employed; the ingenuity of his
conjectures and the humanity of every motion!
Two hours were I and he and all of us held in this dreadful suspense.
At last he was successful; and the relief I felt, the load that seemed
removed from my heart, it is impossible to describe!
When your brother was perfectly come to himself, Frank suffered him to
be bled. For it had been proposed before; but Frank, with a
determination that could not be withstood, refused to admit of it;
though he had been intreated, and at last openly and loudly blamed, by
the surgeon and those who believed in him, for his pertinacity. But
Frank was not to be shaken, even by the very serious fear of future
accusation. He followed, as he tells me, the opinion of John Hunter;
and well might he think it of more worth than that of the person who
pretended to advise. But it requires no common degree of resolution to
persist, in this manner, in the right; and wholly to despise calumny
and its consequences.
If you think, Louisa, that after this I can add nothing in praise of
Frank you are greatly mistaken; for what is to come raises his
character almost to an enviable dignity.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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