which a stream of blood was now
flowing down my coat-sleeve.

"I never noticed it, sir, till this moment. It can't be of much
consequence, for I have been on horseback the entire day, and never felt
it."

"Look to it at once, boy; a man wants all his blood for this campaign. Go
to your quarters. I shall not need you for the present; so pray see the
doctor at once."

As I left the general's quarters, I began to feel sensible of pain, and
before a quarter of an hour had elapsed, had quite convinced myself that my
wound was a severe one. The hand and arm were swollen, heavy, and distended
with hemorrhage beneath the skin, my thirst became great, and a cold,
shuddering sensation passed over me from time to time.

I sat down for a moment upon the grass, and was just reflecting within
myself what course I should pursue, when I heard the tramp of feet
approaching. I looked up, and perceived some soldiers in fatigue dresses,
followed by a few others who, from their noiseless gestures and sad
countenances, I guessed were carrying some wounded comrade to the rear.

"Who is it, boys?" cried I.

"It's the major, sir, the Lord be good to him!" said a hardy-looking
Eighty-eighth man, wiping his eye with the cuff of his coat as he spoke.

"Not your major? Not Major O'Shaughnessy?" said I, jumping up and rushing
forward towards the litter. Alas, too true, it was the gallant fellow
himself! There he lay, pale and cold; his bloodless cheek and parted lips
looking like death itself. A thin blue rivulet trickled from his forehead,
but his most serious wound appeared to be in the side; his coat was open,
and showed a mass of congealed and clotted blood, from the midst of which,
with every motion of the way, a fresh stream kept welling upward. Whether
from the shock or my loss of blood or from both together, I know not, but I
sank fainting to the ground.

It would have needed a clearer brain and a cooler judgment than I possessed
to have conjectured where I was, and what had occurred to me, when next
I recovered my senses. Weak, fevered, and with a burning thirst, I lay,
unable to move, and could merely perceive the objects which lay within the
immediate reach of my vision. The place was cold, calm, and still as the
grave. A lamp, which hung high above my head, threw a faint light around,
and showed me, within a niche of the opposite wall, the figure of a
gorgeously dressed female; she appeared to be standing motionless, but as
t