midday
He was in a high fever while he was writing , and the blood-and-thunder Magazine diction he adopted did not calm him . Two months afterward he was reported fit for duty , but , in spite of the fact that he was urgently needed to help an undermanned Commission stagger through a deficit , he preferred to die ; vowing at the last that he was hag-ridden . I got his manuscript before he died , and this is his version of the affair , dated 1885 : My doctor tells me that I need rest and change of air . It is not improbable that I shall get both ere long -- rest that neither the red-coated messenger nor the midday gun can break , and change of air far beyond that which any homeward-bound steamer can give me . In the meantime I am resolved to stay where I am ; and , in flat defiance of my doctor 's orders , to take all the world into my confidence . You shall learn for yourselves the precise nature of my malady ; and shall , too , judge for yourselves whether any man born of woman on this weary earth was ever so tormented as I. Speaking now as a condemned criminal might speak ere the drop-bolts are drawn , my story , wild and hideously improbable as it may appear , demands at least attention . That it will ever receive credence I utterly disbelieve .