A guitar also lay carelessly in one
corner, and a rich but faded bouquet of flowers filled a porcelain
vase.
At the foot of the bed where the wounded soldier lay, stood a boy
with a quivering lip and swimming eye, as he heard the sick man moan
in his uneasy sleep. Close by the head of the bed sat an
assistant-surgeon of the regiment, watching what evidently seemed to
be the turning point as to the sufferer's chance for life or death.
As the boy and the surgeon watched him thus, gradually the opiate
just administered began to affect him, and he seemed at last to fall
into the deep and quiet sleep that is generally indicated by a low,
regular and uninterrupted respiration.
The boy had not only watched the wounded man, but had seemed also to
half read the surgeon's thoughts, from time to time, and now marked
the gleam of satisfaction upon his face as the medicine produced the
desired effect upon the system of his patient.
"How do you think Captain Bezan is, to-day?" whispered the boy,
anxiously, as the surgeon's followed him noiselessly from the
sick-room to the corridor without.
"Very low, master Ruez, very low indeed; it is the most critical
period of his sickness; but he has gone finely into that last nap,
thanks to the medicine, and if he will but continue under its
influence thus for a few hours, we may look for an abatement of this
burning thirst and fever, and then--"
"What, sir?" said the boy, eagerly, "what then?"
"Why, he may get over those wounds, but it's a severe case, and
would be little less than a miracle.
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