"No, thank you," Ralph said, "and in spite of the sleep I have had, I feel as if I could go off again till morning, comfortably."
"Be patient, if I am late," the woman said. "I will come as soon as I can. If I am late, you will know that there are Germans about."
Ralph's idea of his capacity for sleep turned out correct. It was still dark when he woke but, striking a match, he found that it was nearly seven o'clock. He at once blew out the match, felt for the apple water, took a drink, and then nestled down deep into the fur coat.
"It will be getting light in another hour," he said to himself. "It's awfully cold, too; but I am better off, here, than I should be in the field. I hope she will be here soon; I want to know if she has any news. Well, there is only an hour to lay awake," and, almost as he murmured the words, Ralph dropped off again, and slept until ten o'clock.
This time, he woke with the slight creaking which the trap door made.
"How are you today, Monsieur le Capitaine?" his hostess said.
"I am getting on capitally, thanks to your care," Ralph said. "And what have you there?"
"Your breakfast and some plaster. My husband started, yesterday evening, to walk to the doctor, who lives twelve miles off. He told him all about you; but the doctor would not come, himself. However, he sent word that the wound was to be washed well, twice a day, with warm water; and that a little lint is to be laid in it each time, after the bathing and, when the inflammation ceases to look angry, I am to draw the edges together as closely as I can, and strap them together with these strips of plaster."
"It is very kind of your husband," Ralph said, "very kind. Did the doctor say how long I should be, before I could be about again?"
"No," the woman said. "Jacques asked him, but he said that he could not say without seeing the wound, and examining you. Jacques described its position: coming down from the back of the head, taking off just a little bit of the top of the ear, and then ending on the cheekbone. He said that Monsieur le Capitaine must have a head as thick as a wall, or it would have killed him."