GHT.

Long with the agonising pain--for the sensations they experienced were
exceedingly painful--there was confusion in their thoughts, and
wandering in their speech. The feeling was somewhat to that of
sea-sickness in its worst form; and they felt that reckless indifference
to death so characteristic of the sufferer from this very common, but
not the less painful, complaint. Had the sea, seething and surging
against the beach so near them, broken beyond its boundaries, and swept
over the spot where they lay, not one of them, in all probability, would
have stirred hand or foot to remove themselves out of its reach.
Drowning--death in any form--would at that moment have seemed preferable
to the tortures they were enduring.

They did not lie still. At times one or another would get up and stray
from under the tree. But the nausea continued, accompanied by the
horrid retching; their heads swam, their steps tottered, and staggering
back, they would fling themselves down despairingly, hoping, almost
praying, for death to put an end to their agonies. It was likely soon
to do so.

During all, Captain Redwood showed that he was thinking less of himself
than his children. Willingly would he have lain down and died, could
that have secured their surviving him. But it was a fate that
threatened all alike. On this account, he was wishing that either he or
one of his comrades, Murtagh or Saloo, might outlive the young people
long enough to give them the rites of sepulture. He could not bear the
thought that the bodies of his two beautiful children were to be left
above ground, on the desolate shore, their flesh to be torn from them by
the teeth of ravenous beasts or the beaks of predatory birds--their
bones to whiten and moulder under the sun and storms of the tropics.

Despite the pain he was himself enduring, he secretly communicated his
wishes to Murtagh and the Malay, imploring them to obey what might be
almost deemed a dying request.

Parting speeches were from time to time exchanged in the muttered tones
of despair. Prayers were said aloud, unitedly, and by all of them
silently in their own hearts.

After this, Captain Redwood lay resignedly, his children, one on each
side of him, nestling within his arms, their heads pillowed upon his
breast close together. They also held one another by the hand, joined
in affectionate embrace across the breast of their father. Not many
words were spoken between them; only