DISTURBED BY WHAT SHE SEES.
The old man is breathing stertorously. Half of the eye-balls are hidden under the upper eyelids—the whites are turned up, and make a ghastly continuation to the white bandage round the chin. The nurse moves hastily away and summons one of the assistant physicians. Everybody else in the great still room is asleep, and in its pale light no token is given of the presence of the angel of death, but before the physician’s return the dread work is done, and the old man’s troubled spirit has passed into the land of shadows. The calling of the date was merely a matter of form. Everything is done quietly. No one is wakened. A screen is put about the little cot. Two stout men are summoned from below. The corpse is pinned up and carried away through the silent ward.
CHAPTER XXX.
PIECES OF MEN.
The convalescent patients at the hospital are not only permitted, but encouraged, to take full advantage of the two greatest remedies in nature’s pharmacœpea, fresh air and exercise. On the west side of the main building, a long, substantially built stairway leads from the various wards to the recreation grounds below. Here are planted trees, grass in abundance, and benches here and there for the double purpose of rest and shade. A little north of the center building and the fever hospital is the convalescent-room, a large, airy building, furnished inside with lounges, tables, chairs and the appurtenances for such simple games as draughts and dominoes. The upper story is devoted to the use of female patients. On fine days, however, the majority of the inmates prefer a pipe outside. Although many of them are destitute of funds, few appear to suffer from want of the magic weed. There is a sort of freemasonry among smokers, and the stingiest of men has scarcely the heart to refuse an occasional handful of tobacco to his more needy fellow-sufferer. And how some of the poor battered wrecks enjoy the luxury, even though the pipe be a short and rank dhudeen, and its contents the dryest and most bitter of five-cent plug!
That man in the blue coat, reaching nearly to his knees, is a notable example. He is