Deeper gratitude never spoke from any face. The poor fellow tried to lift his hands, but could not. To assure him that his wish would be granted I once more patted his cheeks and forehead and then left the room, followed by the orderly and the wash-basin.
"There is no use telegraphing," said Doctor MacDonald. "He won't live longer than another hour, at the most."
Ten minutes later the man was dead. The operation-table was being wheeled down the corridor by the orderly. I had just stepped out of a ward.
The orderly stopped.
"You won't have to bring the woman here," he said, as he lifted the end of the sheet that covered the face.
As reward for my readiness to help the poor man, I have still in my mind the expression of relief that lay on the dead face. He had passed off in gladsome anticipation of the meeting there was to be.
I covered up the face and the orderly trundled the body away.
Some months later I sat in a room of the big military hospital in the Tatavla Quarter of Constantinople. On a bench against the wall opposite me were sitting a number of men in Turkish uniform. They were blind. Some of them had lost their eyes in hand-to-hand combat, more of them had been robbed of their sight in hand-grenade encounters.
Doctor Eissen, the oculist-surgeon of the hospital, was about to fit these men with glass eyes. In the neat little case on the table were eyes of all colors, most of them brownish tints, a few of them were blue.
One of the Turks was a blond—son of a Greek or Circassian, maybe.