"
The Pilot, meantime, endeavored to introduce a few drops of brandy
between the lips of the patient. Fritz stood trembling like an aspen
leaf and deadly pale; he regarded these operations as if his own life
were at stake, and not the patient's.
"There remains only one other course to adopt, Mrs. Wolston," said
Becker, "you must endeavor to bring your daughter to life by means of
your own breath."
"Only tell me what to do, Mr. Becker, and, if every drop of blood in
my body is wanted, all is at your disposal."
"You must apply your mouth to that of your daughter, and, whilst her
nostrils are compressed, breathe at intervals into her breast, and so
imitate the act of natural respiration."
Stronger lungs than those of a woman might have been urgent under such
circumstances, but maternal love supplied what was wanting in physical
strength.
The Pilot had turned the prow of the pinnace towards home; he felt
that, in the present case at least, the comforts of the land were
preferable to the charms of the sea.
"This time it is not my breath, but her own," said Mrs. Wolston.
"Her pulse beats," said Becker; "she lives."
"Thank God!" exclaimed Fritz and Willis in one voice.
A quarter of an hour had scarcely yet elapsed since the patient's
first immersion in the sea; but this brief interval had been an age of
agony to them all.
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