"What is the loss of one night's sleep, father," said Margaret, "when a man's life is in danger? Let me stay, he might want something."
Her father did not gainsay her, and his look of satisfaction acknowledged she was right. Fritz Deyke said nothing, but he raised his large true-hearted blue eyes with an expression of gratitude to the young girl's face.
Lohmeier seated himself in an armchair and soon nodded; the young people remained near the bed, and scrupulously carried out the surgeon's orders, watching with pleasure every fresh sign of life in their patient, sometimes a deep breath, sometimes a slight flush passing over his pale face.
For a long time they sat in silence.
"You are a good girl," Fritz said at last, when she had just handed him a spoonful of wine, and he held out his hand to her in hearty friendship; "how thankful my lieutenant's mother will be to you, for what you have done for her son."
"Ah! his poor mother!" she said with emotion, responding to the warm pressure of his hand, whilst a tear shone in her clear eyes; "is she a great lady?"
Fritz Deyke imparted to her in low whispers all about the lieutenant's family, and the old house in Blechow, and he told her of beautiful Wendland, with its rich pastures and dark fir woods, and then of his own home, of his father, and the farm and acres; and the young girl listened silently and attentively to the soldier's words. The pictures they presented were so natural, so clear and so bright, and they were all gilded by the poetic shimmer surrounding the brave cuirassier, who had saved his playmate in the bloody battle-field, and who now watched so anxiously over the life still so precarious.
The night passed quietly in old Lohmeier's house. Loud, merry voices rang without, from the soldiers quartered in the town, and from the bivouacs, and when the old brewer sometimes woke he glanced benevolently at the young soldier and the wounded officer, whose presence prevented his house from being otherwise occupied, for all the troops had respected the words Fritz had written on the door. No one had knocked, but all had passed it in silence.
The morning of the 28th June dawned brilliantly, as if to greet the victorious soldiers in their cantonments. Already all was movement at head-quarters. The king in a proclamation to the army had expressed in a few affectionate words his thanks for their exertions and courage.
Then the burial of the dead took place. They were interred, so far as they could be found on the battle-field, in the churchyard of Langensalza.