Anna Lombard, page 59 by Victoria Cross
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the exertion of moving the bed made the sweat pour from me, and I sat down gasping with that awful sense of there being nothing to breathe nothing such as we are accustomed to think of only this horrible thick mixture that makes one feel one is sinking in quicksand. In that moment, as I sat dripping with perspiration, with limbs that seemed of cotton wool, and with mouth hanging open, gasping, I thought of the unhappy fish I had seen, when with anglers, lying straining and heaving on the dry rocks and I was glad I had never fished. When I Lad recovered a little, I walked round the room rescuing my most precious possessions books, papers, and clothes from the persistent drip, drip that was coming now from every part of the ceiling. As soon as I had done this I noticed the rain was leaking through the dry corner of the ceiling and iny bed was again being dripped upon. I moved it again to shelter and lay down on it. I dozed after a little while, with the roar of the rain in my ears, and I woke again with water warm, tepid water splashing on my face. I rose again and dragged my bed after me, but only gained a few minutes' respite; the roof seemed giving way all over, and the few weary hours that remained of darkness I spent chasing my bed round the room and puddling after it in dripping, steaming pajamas. At the first light I put on a holland suit and went downstairs. The staircase had been transformed into a dashing waterfall. The rain had poured into the veranda rooms upstairs, and rushed out again on to the landings in the house, and from there found its way in a whirling, eddying torrent down the staircase. I picked my way down it, and entered my dining-room, to feel the carpet under my feet give like a sponge and go squelch, squelch at each step. On the table I saw no signs of my fine white damask cloth that usually adorned it. All over, for one-half inch deep, lay a mass of struggling, dying ants and fallen ants' wings. Every cup and saucer was full of them, and the bread and butter invisible beneath piles of