Father, this afternoon. He gev a turn, an' he
said something like 'Tired People.' I thought there was great sense
in that, if he was talkin' to us, so I was cheered up about him--but
not a word have I got out of him since. But it's something that he
spoke at all."

The _cure_ bent over the quiet figure. Two dark eyes opened, as if
with difficulty, and met his.

"Norah," said Jim Linton. "Are you there, Norah?"

"I am a friend, my son," said the _cure_. "Are you in pain?"

The dark eyes looked at him uncomprehendingly. Then he murmured,
"Water!"

"It is here." The little priest held the heavy head, and Jim managed
to drink a little. Something like a shadow of a smile came into his
eyes as the priest wiped his lips. Then they closed again.

"If they would send us a doctor!" muttered the _cure_, in his own
language, longingly. "_Ma joi_, what a lad!" He looked down in
admiration at the splendid helpless body.

"He won't die, Father, will he?"

"I do not know, my son. I can find no wound, except the one on his
head--nothing seems broken. Perhaps he will be better to-morrow." He
gave the little Irishman his blessing and moved away. There were many
eager eyes awaiting him.

Jim was restless during the night; Denny Callaghan, himself unable to
sleep, watched him muttering and trying to turn, but unable to move.

"I doubt but his back's broken," said the little man ruefully.
"Yerra, what a pity!" He tried to soothe the boy with kind words; and
towards the dawn Jim slept heavily.

He woke when the sun was shining upon him through a rift in the wall.
The church was full of smothered sounds--stifled groans from helpless
men, stiffened by lying still, and trying to move. Jim managed to
raise himself a little, at which Denny Callaghan gave an exclamation
of relief.

"Hurroo! Are you better, sir?"

"Where am I?" Jim asked thickly.

"'Tis in a church you are, sir, though it's not much like it," said
the little man. "The Germans call it a hospital. 'Tis all I wish
they may have the like themselves, and they wounded. Are you better,
sir?"

"I . . . think I'm all right," Jim said. He was trying to regain his
scattered faculties. "So they've got me!" He tried to look at
Callaghan. "What's your regiment?"

"The Dubs, sir. 'Tis hard luck; I kem back wounded from Suvla Bay and
they sent me out to the battalion here; and I'd not been with them a
week before I got landed again. Now 'tis a Germa