Sons of Fire, Volume III by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

Days grew into weeks, and the slow, anxious hours brought very little change in Allan's condition, and certainly no change which the doctors could call a substantial improvement. Physician and surgeon from London, famous specialists both, came at weekly intervals and testified to the good fight which the patient was making, and the latent power of a frame which had been strained and wasted by the hardships of African travel, and which was now called upon to recover from severe injuries. Consciousness had returned, but not reason. The young man had not once recognized the mother who rarely left his bedside, but whose bland and pleasant countenance was so sorely altered by grief and anxiety that even in the full possession of his senses he might hardly have known her. The power of speech had returned, but only in delirious utterances, or in a strange gibberish, which poor Lady Emily mistook for an African language, but which was really the nonsense-tongue of a disordered brain.

The doctors pronounced the case not utterly without hope; but they would commit themselves to nothing further than this. It was a wonder to have kept him alive so long. His recovery would be almost a miracle.