d the request.

"Don't talk too much," answered the other in a broken voice. "What is
it you want? I'll do anything for you, God knows!"

"I want you to promise that you'll take this ring to Queen Mab--and
give it to her with your own hands. Say that I remembered her
always--and carried my love for her with me down into the grave.
Promise me that you will give it her--_yourself_!"

Valentine ceased speaking, exhausted with the effort.

"I will, I will!" returned the other, taking the ring. "But don't talk
about dying, Val; you'll pull through right enough."

The sufferer answered with a feeble shake of his head, and another
terrible fit of coughing left him faint and gasping for breath.

"Stay with me," he whispered.

Jack propped him up to ease his breathing, and wiped the blood from his
pallid lips. For a long, long time he sat silently holding the hand of
his dying friend; then, fight against it as he would, exhausted nature
began to assert herself in an overpowering desire to sleep. Numbed
with cold, and wellnigh heart-broken, wretched in body and mind,
jealous of the moments as they flew past and of the lessening
opportunity of proving his love by any trifling service it might be in
his power to render--in spite of all this, an irresistible drowsiness
crept over him, and his head fell forward on his knees.

The feeble voice was speaking again.

"What did you say, Val? God forgive me, I cannot keep awake."

Bending close down to catch the words, he could distinguish, even in
the darkness, some faint traces of the old familiar smile.

"You used to say--that I had all the luck--but, you remember--at
Brenlands--it was the lead captain that got killed."

Jack murmured some reply, he was too worn out and miserable to weep.
Once more that terrible struggle to keep his heavy eyes from closing; a
dozen times he straightened his back, and groaned in bitterness of
spirit at the thought that he could wish to sleep at such a time as
this; then once again his head sank under the heavy weight of fatigue
and want of rest, and everything became a blank.

* * * * *

Awakening with a start, Jack scrambled to his feet. How long he had
slept he could not tell, nor did he realize where he was till the light
of a lantern flashing in his eyes brought him to his senses.

"How is--" the question died on his lips.

The surgeon took one keen glance, held the lamp closer, and then raised
it