ome of them."

"Then I've been ill some time?"

"Oh, about eight days."

The soldier moved uneasily, and the nurse in him became uppermost.

"I guess the Lieutenant hadn't better talk any more," he said. It was
his voice now which held authority.

The Lieutenant looked out at the palms and the silent gloomy mountains
and the empty coast-line, where the same wave was rising and falling
with weary persistence.

"Eight days," he said. His eyes shut quickly, as though with a sudden
touch of pain. He turned his head and sought for the figure at the
foot of the cot. Already the figure had grown faint and was receding
and swaying.

"Has any one written or cabled?" the Lieutenant spoke, hurriedly. He
was fearful lest the figure should disappear altogether before he
could obtain his answer. "Has any one come?"

"Why, they couldn't get here, Lieutenant, not yet."

The voice came very faintly. "You go to sleep now, and I'll run and
fetch some letters and telegrams. When you wake up, maybe I'll have a
lot for you."

But the Lieutenant caught the nurse by the wrist, and crushed his hand
in his own thin fingers. They were hot, and left the steward's skin
wet with perspiration. The Lieutenant laughed gayly.

"You see, Doctor," he said, briskly, "that you can't kill me. I can't
die. I've got to live, you understand. Because, sir, she said she
would come. She said if I was wounded, or if I was ill, she would come
to me. She didn't care what people thought. She would come anyway and
nurse me--well, she will come.

"So, Doctor--old man--" He plucked at the steward's sleeve, and
stroked his hand eagerly, "old man--" he began again, beseechingly,
"you'll not let me die until she comes, will you? What? No, I know I
won't die. Nothing made by man can kill me. No, not until she comes.
Then, after that--eight days, she'll be here soon, any moment? What?
You think so, too? Don't you? Surely, yes, any moment. Yes, I'll go to
sleep now, and when you see her rowing out from shore you wake me.
You'll know her; you can't make a mistake. She is like--no, there is
no one like her--but you can't make a mistake."

That day strange figures began to mount the sides of the ship, and to
occupy its every turn and angle of space. Some of them fell on their
knees and slapped the bare decks with their hands, and laughed and
cried out, "Thank God, I'll see God's country again!" Some of them
were regulars, bound in bandages; some were volunteers,