I made a sign at once to my mouth, and after a second’s delay the spoon touched my lips; but so awkwardly was it applied, that the fluid ran down my chin. With a sickly impatience I turned away, but a mild, low voice, soft as a woman’s, said—
‘Allons!—Let me try once more’; and now the spoon met my lips with due dexterity.
‘Thanks,’ said I faintly, and I opened my eyes.
‘You’ll soon be about again, Tiernay,’ said the same voice—as for the person, I could distinguish nothing, for there were six or seven around me—‘and if I know anything of a soldier’s heart, this will do just as much as the doctor.’
As he spoke he detached from his coat a small enamel cross, and placed it in my hand, with a gentle squeeze of the fingers, and then saying ‘Au revoir,’ moved on.
‘Who’s that?’ cried I suddenly, while a strange thrill ran through me.
‘Hush!’ whispered the surgeon cautiously; ‘hush! it is the Emperor.’
CHAPTER LI. SCHÖNBRUNN IN 1809
About two months afterwards, on a warm evening of summer, I entered Vienna in a litter, along with some twelve hundred other wounded men, escorted by a regiment of cuirassiers. I was weak and unable to walk. The fever of my wound had reduced me to a skeleton; but I was consoled for everything by knowing that I was a captain on the Emperor’s own staff, and decorated by himself with the Cross of ‘the Legion.’ Nor were these my only distinctions, for my name had been included among the lists of the officiers délite—a new institution of the Emperor, enjoying considerable privileges and increase of pay.