A day or two after the entertainment at Rockhouse, Becker whispered to
the Pilot--
"Willis, take a rifle, and come along with me; I have something to say
to you."
They walked a quarter of an hour or so without uttering a word, when
Willis broke the silence.
"You seem sad, Mr. Becker."
"Yes, Willis, I am almost distracted."
"Still, you seem well enough; you are as hale and hearty as if you
had just been keel-hauled and got a new rig."
"It is not my body that is suffering, Willis; it is my mind."
"Whatever is the matter?"
"Willis, _my wife is dying_."
And so it was. For a long period Becker's wife had been a prey to
racking pains, which, so to speak, she hid from herself, the better to
conceal them from others, just as if suffering had been a crime. After
having resisted for fourteen years the afflictions of exile, long and
perilous expeditions, nights passed under tents, humid winters and
fierce burning summers, her health had, at length, succumbed, not all
at once, like fabrics sapped by gunpowder, but little by little, like
those that are demolished piecemeal with the pickaxe of the workman.
Day by day she grew more and more feeble, without those who were
constantly by her side observing the insidious workings of disease.
Like Mucius Scaevola, who held his hands in a burning brazier without
uttering a word, she so effectually hid her griefs within the recesses
of her own bosom, that no one even suspected her illness.
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