Now as I left the fever behind, these visions did not quit me. I suppose that I was still light-headed, by reason of the blood-letting, for I was continually tormented with the most frightful dreams, wherein the two _fetisceros_, and that poor New Christian of whom I knew only by hearsay, were mingled with their lordships the Inquisidors and the gentlemen of my acquaintance in Goa, and these again with the _banyans_ of Surat and the Company’s servants there, and even with my father and my little cousin Dorothy, in the strangest and most fantastical drolleries, the which were no drolleries to me, but troubled me mightily. For being haunted by these phantasms night and day, and seeing them continually whirling and seething before me in uncouth dances and routs, and mocking me with extravagant gestures, like so many antics,[73] I became, as it were, distraught, so that in my frenzy I was at the pains to end my life by striking my head against the wall beside me. In this wicked design, as you may well perceive, I did not succeed, but only stunned myself, and was so found by the _alcaide_ and my physician the _pundit_. And when these had revived me, I poured forth to them so much of my troubles and of the horrors that oppressed me as my Portuguese would convey, and they, perceiving that I was in danger of going mad by reason of my solitude, came to me the next day for to tell me that it had pleased their lordships to grant me a companion in my cell. This companion was brought to me before long, and his presence proved a prodigious great cheer and solace to me, although we never spake one to the other save on our most needful occasions. And this because I had in my mind that common report which says that the Inquisidors do often send to a prisoner as companion one that may worm himself into his confidence and discover his secret matters with the intent to betray them to his hurt, though now, remembering this person’s silence towards me, I do believe that he feared me on the same grounds. Yet was I glad to behold a face that was not a jailer’s, and so long as this man was in the cell, my visions troubled me but little. I don’t know by what crimes he had brought himself under the power of the Holy Office, though Father Theodorus said he believed ’twas that he had espoused two wives at the same time; but though he had espoused a dozen, he did me a good turn in that he banished my dreams for me. When we had broken our fast of a morning, he was wont to lie on his mat, and I on mine, sleeping or meditating, but rarely speaking. So easy are we to accustom ourselves even to the drollest situations, that I found myself altogether solitary when I was deprived of my silent companion. The _alcaide_ and another officer fetched him away one night, and I never saw him thereafter, nor heard nothing of his fate.