ome one was upbraiding him. At
any rate, his white lips trembled with a weak desire to breathe, and a
little shadow of life appeared to flicker in his open eyes. And on my
sleeve, beneath his back, some hot bright blood came trickling.

"Keep him to that," said Martin, with some carpenter sort of surgery;
"less fear of the life when the blood begins to run. Don't move him,
missy; never mind your arm. It will be the saving of him."

I was not strong enough to hold him up, but Suan ran to help me; and
they told me afterward that I fell faint, and no doubt it must have been
so. But when the rest were gone, and had taken poor Firm to his straw
mattress, the cold night air must have flowed into the room, and that,
perhaps, revived me. I went to the bottom of the stairs and listened,
and then stole up to the landing, and heard Suan Isco, who had taken the
command, speaking cheerfully in her worst English. Then I hoped for the
best, and, without any knowledge, wandered forth into the open air.

Walking quite as in a dream this time (which I had vainly striven to do
when seeking for my nugget), I came to the bank of the gleaming river,
and saw the water just in time to stop from stepping into it. Careless
about this and every other thing for the moment, I threw myself on
the sod, and listened to the mournful melody of night. Sundry unknown
creatures, which by day keep timid silence, were sending timid sounds
into the darkness, holding quiet converse with themselves, or it, or one
another. And the silvery murmur of the wavelets soothed the twinkling
sleep of leaves.

I also, being worn and weary, and having a frock which improved with
washing, and was spoiled already by nursing Firm, was well content to
throw myself into a niche of river-bank and let all things flow past me.
But before any thing had found time to flow far, or the lullaby of night
had lulled me, there came to me a sadder sound than plaintive Nature can
produce without her Master's aid, the saddest sound in all creation--a
strong man's wail.

Child as I was--and, perhaps, all the more for that reason as knowing
so little of mankind--I might have been more frightened, but I could not
have been a bit more shocked, by the roaring of a lion. For I knew in
a moment whose voice it was, and that made it pierce me tenfold. It was
Uncle Sam, lamenting to himself, and to his God alone, the loss of his
last hope on earth. He could not dream that any other than his Maker