"What's the use of my giving up so soon," he said;
"I am young, and strong, and in good health, and have plenty of sea-room
to leeward of me, and can fetch up when there is occasion for it. If a
fellow don't live while he can, he'll never live." I read to him the
parable of the wise and foolish virgins, but he left me holding the same
opinion, to the last.
Directly in front of my ward was the dead-house. Thither all the bodies of
those who died in the hospital were regularly carried for dissection.
Scarcely one escaped being subjected to the knife. This dead-house stood
some eighty, or a hundred, yards from the hospital, and between them was
an area, containing a few large trees. I was in the habit, after I got
well enough to go out, to hobble to one of these trees, where I would sit
for hours, reading and meditating. It was a good place to make a man
reflect on the insignificance of worldly things, disease and death being
all around him. I frequently saw six or eight bodies carried across this
area, while sitting in it, and many were taken to the dead-house, at
night. Hundreds, if not thousands, were in the hospital, and a large
proportion died.
The morning of the day but one, after I had taken leave of the young
Scotchman, I was sitting under a tree, as usual, when I saw some coolies
carrying a dead body across the area. They passed quite near me, and one
of the coolies gave me to understand it was that of this very youth! He
had been seized with the fever, a short time after he left me, and here
was a sudden termination to all his plans of enjoyment and his hopes of
life; his schemes of future repentance.
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