ABSTRACT
By the care of this excellent man, aided by the medical skill of the surgeon of the regiment, Orlando in about a fortnight arose as it were from the grave. His senses returned long before his strength, and with them all the sad recollection of his disastrous voyage: – almost the first use he made of his returning reason, was to implore the lieutenant to enquire for Captain Warwick, of whom he found, with inexpressible sorrow, that no intelligence had been received, and that he was believed by his brother officers to be in one of those transports that had gone to the bottom. In a few days a negro servant enquired for Ensign Somerive, and Orlando in a moment recollected that it was Perseus, the man who had served Warwick some years. – He now hoped to have heard some account of his sister and his friend that might have quieted his extreme uneasiness: but the sight of Perseus only served to increase it; for he learned from him that Captain Warwick arrived at Portsmouth the evening the first transports sailed, and that, by his interest with the captain of the frigate in which the negro embarked, and some persons still higher in power, that ship was delayed for some days, at the end of which Warwick promised to appear; but as he did not, nor even at the end of some hours longer than the time he required, the captain would have incurred too great a risk by waiting longer; and therefore got under weigh with so strong and favourable a wind, that they overtook the rest of the fleet two days before they made the Pike of Teneriffe. This circumstance, however, Perseus said, was the only one that gave him hope; for he knew his master, thus missing his passage, would hire a vessel to convey him, which would probably not only take up some days, but hardly sail as they did; and therefore there was reason to hope that he might have escaped the storm in which they suffered, and it was improbable that the lady whom Orlando had seen perish, and afterwards heard was the wife of an officer of foot, was his sister.
