I watched at night, and during the
hours of my absence my assistant was persistently present in the tower.
At last the steamer sailed away from the wharf at Port Littelton. The
last moments I passed alone with Miss Dodan were sacred, sweet memories;
all that I have now.
Mr. and Mrs. Dodan and Miss Dodan were waving their handkerchiefs from
the deck as I turned sorrowfully back to Christ Church. I realized that
I had seen Miss Dodan for the last time, and that when she returned to
New Zealand, she would only find me gone. There was but one duty now. To
resume, if possible, the communications with my father, and prepare the
story of my experience and discoveries, and leave it to the world.
I went back to the Observatory. I was again alone. A reaction of
despondency overwhelmed me, and it was coincident with a hemorrhage,
which left me weak and nervous. I resumed my watching at the station. I
seemed to anticipate a new message. I endured peculiar and excruciating
excitement, a tense suspense of desire and prevision that deprived me of
appetite and sleep, and accelerated the ravages of the disease, that
now, victorious over my weakened, nervous force, began the last stages
of its devastating advance.
It was a clear, cold night of exquisite severity and beauty--May 20,
1894, that the third message came from my father. It was announced, as
had been all the others, by the sudden response of the Morse receiver. A
few nights before, grasping at a vague hope that I might again reach him
with the magnetic waves at my command, I had launched into space the
single sentence: "Await me! Death is very near.
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