's very ill, Jim--it's an even fight for life."

"Ef she do--hit'll kill my young marster--"

"Soldiers can't die that way--no--"

"Yassah--but dey ain't been married but three months, sah, an' he des
worship de very groun' her little foot walks on--she des can't die--she
too young an' putty, sah--hit des natchally can't be--"

The doctor's gray head slowly moved as if in remembrance of tragic
scenes.

"Death loves a shining mark sometimes!"

He turned to the slave in tones of warning:

"Watch your master closely--"

"My _marster_--sah!"

"He'll go down next--"

"Yassah--yassah!"

Two days later, the strong man collapsed with a crash that took even the
experienced old doctor by surprise. An iron will had bent over the
bedside of his bride and fought with grim defiance the battle with
unseen foe until the last ounce of strength had gone.

In his delirium they moved him to another room and he awoke to find
himself in a prison cell on a desert island a thousand miles from the
mate he adored.

He watched his jailers and at last his hour came. The tired guard beside
his prison pallet slept. With fevered stealth he rose and with the
strength of a giant, bent the bars of his cage and crawled and fought
his way over hill and valley, rocks and mountains, back to the bedside
of his beloved.

He paused in rapture at the door. She was sitting up in bed, the pillows
propped behind her back, singing their favorite song--"Fairy Bells." How
soft and weirdly sweet her voice--its notes so far away and
plaintive--never had she sung so divinely!

He held his breath lest a word or quiver of its melody should be lost.
And then he slipped his strong arms about her and looked into her eyes
shining with unearthly beauty.

"You have come at last, my own!" she sighed. "I knew the Bells would
call you--"

"Yes--dearest--and I'll never leave you again--they took me away a
wounded prisoner of war--but I broke the bars and came when I heard you
call--"

"Look," she whispered, pointing with the slender blue-veined finger,
"there she is, in the doorway again with her baby in her arms, waving at
sunset to her lover on the hill?--what does it matter, a cabin or a
palace!"

The shining eyes grew dim, the figure drooped, and a wild piteous cry
came from the lover's fevered lips:

"Lord God of Love and Pity--she's dying!--Help--Help--Help!"

His faithful servant, worn with watching day and night, heard the cry,
rushed to his si