She had found a silver-handled corkscrew in the butler's room among the
relics of the feast, and with this she opened one of the bottles, Fareham
watching her all the time.
"Is that some new alexipharmic?" he asked with a sudden rational air, which
was almost as startling as if a dead man had spoken. "I will have no more
of their loathsome drugs. They have made an apothecary's shop of my body. I
would rather they let me rot by the plague than that they should poison me
with their antidotes, or dissolve me to death with their sudorifics."
"This is not a medicine, Lord Fareham, but your own wine; and I want you to
drink a long draught of it, and then, who knows but you may sleep off your
malady?"
"Ay, sleep in the grave, sweet friend! I have seen the tokens on my breast
that mean death. There is but one inevitable end for all who are so marked.
'Tis like the forester's notch upon the tree. It means doom. He was king of
the forest once, perhaps; but no matter. His time has come. Oh, Lord, thou
hast tormented me with hot burning coals!" he cried, in a sudden access of
pain; and in the next minute he was raving.
Angela filled a beaker with the bright golden wine, and offered it to the
sick man's lips.
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