"Hush!" she said softly. "You must not talk. You are very ill."
He sank back on the pillows and laughed. "There's a girl lying dead on the road," he said; "but there's a crowd of Huns this morning who are answering the roll-call in hell."
He was silent for several minutes, then frowned heavily. "Look here," he said sternly, "I wish you would stop driving nails into my knee. Who do you think I am—Hindenburg?"
He laughed again, then groaned, and great drops of perspiration stood out on his brow. The woman ministered to him with the gentle firmness of her sex that rises to its best when face to face with suffering. She smoothed his pillows and shifted his position so that he might not irritate his wounds; and, as if soothed by her presence, he sighed weakly and broke into a little negro melody:
"All dat I got on de whole plantation,
All dat I got in de whole creation,
In de big roun' worl' or de deep-blue skies,
Is dat fat li'l feller wid his mammy's eyes,
Li'l feller wid his mammy's eyes."
His voice was very low and soft. Then he suddenly sat up in bed and pointed past her. "Look!" he cried. "The cavalry! The cavalry! By Heaven, how they ride! Look at that officer! Great Scott! it's Oaklands!—Good old Oaklands!—Come on, men—one last fight!—Get those guns away—d' you hear? Get those guns away—now!"