The surgeon looked in pity on that boyish face of despair.
"You'd better keep with us, Baron. I'll patch you up by and by. Don't give in. Things may be better than we fear."
For a moment Roy had been in danger of collapsing. This suggestion revived his failing energies; and he kept steadily up with the little procession till the streets of Coruña were reached. Before the door of Moore's house the bearers paused. Colonel Anderson, the devoted friend and comrade of Sir John through twenty-one years past, met them outside, speechless with distress. This was the third time that he had seen Moore carried, wounded, from a field of battle; and it was the last.
Moore pressed his hand tightly. "Anderson, don't leave me," he murmured, and the words reached Roy, as he came close behind. An appealing glance at the surgeon brought a whispered response, "Yes; come in."
Then, as Moore's faithful French servant, Francois, appeared, in blank horror, with fast-dropping tears, Moore smiled.
"Mon ami, this is nothing," he said.
Roy crept silently to a corner of the room, in which Moore was laid upon a mattress. He felt crushed with the blow, bodily weak, mentally hopeless. That Moore should die seemed to his young spirit to be the end of everything. And from the look on the faces around, from Moore's own ineffable serenity, he read the truth, even before the surgeons had fully examined the wound. It needed no long examination. Medical science had no power to grapple with such injuries as the cannon-ball had worked.
During the process Roy crouched down, his face hidden. Presently his arm was touched by the friendly surgeon.
"Come into the next room, Baron."
"I can't go away," muttered Roy.