PAGE 10
"Man Proposes–"; The Story Of A Man Who Wanted To Die
by
He marveled at his coolness as he flung the cork into the stream and raised the bottle to his lips. His pulse was even, his mind was untroubled. He drank the contents, filled the bottle and let it sink; then rose to his feet, and, bearing his weight upon the gunwale of his canoe, swamped it.
Burdened as he was with shells and hunting-gear he sank, but the cold water sent him fighting and gasping to the surface again. The blind instinct of self-preservation mastered him and, being a powerful swimmer, he struck out. He had planned too well, however. His boots filled, his clothing became wet and he went down for a second time. Then commenced a senseless, terrible struggle, the more terrible because the man fought against his own determination. He rose slowly to the surface, but the shore was far away, the canoe, bottom up, was out of reach. He gasped wildly for breath as his face emerged, but instead of air he inhaled water into his lungs. He choked, horrible convulsions seized him, his limbs threshed, his ears roared, his chest was bursting. He rose and sank, rose and sank, enduring the agony of suffocation, all the time fighting with a strong man’s desperation. After a time he seemed to hear shouting; something tugged and hauled at him; he discovered he could breathe again. His senses wavered, left him, returned; he saw faces bending above him. A moment later he heard his name spoken, then found himself awash in the bottom of a gamekeeper’s batteau.
As in a dream he heard his rescuers explain that they had been out in search of poachers and had rounded the bend below in time to behold him struggling for his life. They were hurrying him back to the club-house now as fast as arms and oars could propel them, and after he had gained sufficient strength he sat up.
He strove to answer their excited questions, but could not speak. A strange paralysis numbed his vocal cords; he could not swallow; his tongue was thick and unmanageable. This silence alarmed the wardens, but Murray knew it to be nothing more than a local anaesthesia due to the contact of the cocaine. He became conscious of feeling very wretched.
They helped him up to the club-house, and on the way he caught glimpses of horrified black faces. He saw the superintendent preparing to send to Boonville for a doctor, but, knowing that the launch had already left, calculated the time it would take for a canoe to make the trip, and was vaguely amused to realize that all this excitement was useless. He experienced a feeling of triumph at the knowledge that he had succeeded in spite of all.
A short time later he was in bed, packed in warm blankets and hot-water bags, but through it all he maintained that distressing dumbness. Despite the artificial heat his hands and feet tingled, as if asleep, then became entirely numb, and he reasoned that the cocaine had begun to affect his circulation. He noted how the chill crept upward slowly, showing that the drug was working. On the mantel opposite he saw Muriel smiling at him from the morocco case and realized that she was very beautiful. After a time her outlines became less distinct, which told him that his optic nerve was becoming affected. Next the contents of the room grew hazy. That was quite as it should be.
He was much interested to note his heart action, which by now had become very erratic. Every pulsation that ran through him sounded as plainly in his ears as a drum-beat. He noticed that they were regular for a time, then gradually increased in speed until his heart raced like a runaway motor, then ceased suddenly, began again slowly, faintly, grew slower and fainter, until with every flutter he thought, “This is the end!”
When this phenomenon had been repeated time after time the sick man endeavored to assist the poison’s effect. At each feeble recovery of his heart he held his breath and strained with all his might, striving by every force of will to stop the systolic action.