hat they seemed like those of children calling their
mothers.

What is this life to which we attach so great a price? This miserable
existence, so full of pain and suffering? Why do we so cling to it,
and fear more to lose it than aught else in the world? What is it that
is to come hereafter that makes us shudder at the mere thought of
death? Who knows? For ages and ages all have thought and thought on
the great question, but none have yet solved it. I, in my eagerness to
live, gazed on that light as the drowning man looks to the shore. I
could not take my eyes from it, and my heart thrilled with hope. I
tried again to shout, but my voice died on my lips. The pattering of
the rain on the ruined dwellings, and on the trees, and on the ground,
drowned all other sounds, and, although I kept repeating, "They hear
us! They are coming!" and although the lantern seemed to grow larger
and larger, after wandering for some time over the field, it slowly
disappeared behind a little hill.

I fell once more senseless to the ground.

XV

When I returned to myself, I looked around. I was in a long hall, with
posts all around. Some one gave me wine and water to drink, and it was
most grateful. I was in a bed, and beside me was an old gray-mustached
soldier, who, when he saw my eyes open, lifted up my head and held a
cup to my lips.

"Well," said he cheerfully, "well! we are better."

I could not help smiling as I thought that I was yet among the living.
My chest and arm were stiff with bandages; I felt as if a hot iron were
burning me there; but no matter, I lived!

I gazed at the heavy rafters crossing the space above me; at the tiles
of the roof, through which the daylight entered in more than one spot;
I turned and looked to the other side, and saw that I was in one of
those vast sheds used by the brewers of the country as a shelter for
their casks and wagons. All around, on mattresses and heaps of straw,
numbers of wounded lay ranged; and in the middle, on a large
kitchen-table, a surgeon-major and his two aids, their shirt-sleeves
rolled up, were amputating the leg of a soldier, who was shrieking in
agony. Behind them was a mass of legs and arms. I turned away sick
and trembling.

Five or six soldiers were walking about, giving bread and drink to the
wounded.

But the man who impressed himself most on my memory was a surgeon with
sleeves rolled up, who cut and cut without paying the slightest
att