n the range of my vision, and presently I heard
the gentle splash of water in that direction, which immediately brought
home to me the consciousness that my mouth and throat were parched. I
opened my mouth to call to the nurses that I was thirsty, but it was
only the very faintest of whispers that escaped my smarting lips. It
was enough, however, to immediately produce a gentle rustle on the other
side of my bed, and the next moment a pretty face was bending over me
and a pair of soft, dark, almond-shaped eyes were gazing sympathetically
into mine.

"Ah!" exclaimed the owner of those eyes, "at last the illustrious
Captain is himself again. Are you suffering very acutely, noble sir?"

"Suffering?" I whispered. "_Rather_! I ache as if I had been beaten
to a jelly, and I am as thirsty as a--as a limekiln. Can you by any
chance get me something to drink? A bucketful will do to start with."

"A bucketful!" she murmured, looking anxiously down at me as she laid
her long, slender, pointed fingers upon the pulse of my left hand where
it rested outside the coverlet. "But no," she continued, evidently
speaking to herself, "his pulse is almost normal, and there is no trace
of fever. A bucketful! Oh, these English!"

She shook her head, as though giving up some problem that she found too
difficult for solution, and shuffled off, with the curious gait peculiar
to Japanese women, without saying another word to me. She approached
the other two nurses, at the far end of the ward, and said something
which caused them both to turn and stare in my direction. Then the
senior of the party, accompanied by the girl whom I had so tremendously
astonished, came up to my bedside, looked at me, felt my pulse, and
shuffled away again, presently returning with one of those cups with a
spout, from which one can drink while in a recumbent position. She
placed the point of the spout between my lips, and the next moment I was
aware that I was imbibing some delicious broth. But the cup! It was
only about the size of an ordinary breakfast cup, and its contents were
gone before I could well taste them. I asked for more, and got a second
cupful; and then, as I was asking for still more, the Medical Staff of
the hospital entered the ward, and the whole crowd turned with one
accord and grouped itself around my bed.

The Chief, a keen, clever-looking little fellow, whose age it was
impossible to guess at since he was clean shaven, turned t