Overcome with fatigue, exposure and increasing
pulmonary weakness, of which I had had painful premonitions, I fainted
at the table, and fell to the floor of the damp and inclement room.
My assistants aver that the transmission ceased almost the next moment
upon my collapse, and the unfinished sentence of my father's message can
be readily understood as implying that the foreign body, or Swarm,
which was destined to strike Mars, had been determined as having about
the amplitude of the City of Scandor.
Days lengthened into weeks, weeks to months, but though unflinchingly
watched by night and day, no further message was received. I had become
weaker, pale and lifeless. The terrible malady made its inroads upon a
frame unable to meet its savage or insidious attacks. This weakness was
aggravated by the excitement produced by the singular experience I had
passed through. My nerves had undergone a strain quite unusual, and the
interior sense of elation, reacting its fits of extreme mental
despondency dislocated my system, and accelerated the gliding virus of
disease inundating the capillaries of circulation and breaking down the
tissues with fever and consumption.
CHAPTER VI.
Miss Dodan came more and more frequently to see me. The thought of my
physical depression, the revulsion of hopelessness over my changing
lineaments made the love I bore her more painful and enervating. I tried
hard to conceal my fears over my condition.
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