After about an hour’s absence Jack came back to me again and gave me another draught of water, which so greatly refreshed me that the excitement and uneasiness under which I had been labouring since his first visit gradually subsided, my aches and pains grew rather more tolerable; my thoughts grew first more placid and then gradually more disconnected, wandering away from the present into the past and to more agreeable themes, my memory of past incidents became confused, and finally I slept.
I must have slept some three or four hours; for when I awoke it was undoubtedly afternoon; Hutchinson had completed his gruesome labours and was sitting not very far away entering some notes in his notebook, and a few of the less seriously wounded were sitting up partaking of soup or broth of some kind out of basins, pannikins, or anything of the kind that came most handy. The sight of these people refreshing themselves reminded me that I was beginning to feel the need of food, and I called out to the doctor to ask if I might have something to eat and drink. He at once rose up and came to me, felt my pulse, looked at my tongue, and prescribed a small quantity of broth, which Jack Keene presently brought me, and which I found delicious. I may here mention that several days later I became aware that this same broth—the origin of which puzzled me at the moment, though not enough to prevent me from taking it—had been prepared from a kind of tortoise, the existence of which in large numbers on the spit Hutchinson had accidentally discovered that very morning, and in pursuit of which he had sent out two of the most slightly wounded with a sack, and instructions to catch and bring in as many of the creatures as they could readily find.
While I was taking my broth the worthy medico stepped to where Nugent was lying and bent over the poor fellow, feeling his pulse and watching his white, pain-drawn face. Then, rising softly, he went into a dark corner of the tent, where, it appeared, his medicine-chest was stowed away, and quickly prepared a draught, which he brought and held to the lips of the patient, tenderly raising the head of the latter to enable him to drink it. Then, having replaced the sufferer’s head upon the makeshift pillow, he bent over and murmured a few words in the dying man’s ear. What they were I know not, nor did I catch Nugent’s response, but the effect of the brief colloquy was that Hutchinson drew from his pocket a small copy of the New Testament and, after glancing here and there at its opened pages, finally began to read, in a clear voice and very impressively, the fifteenth chapter of the first epistle to the Corinthians, reading it through to the end. As he proceeded I saw poor Nugent slowly and painfully draw up his hands, that had lain clenched upon the sand beside him, until they were folded upon his breast in the attitude of prayer. And when at length Hutchinson, with a steady voice, but with the tears trickling down his cheeks, reached the passage, “But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory,” Nugent’s lips began to move as though he were silently repeating the words. The chapter ended, Hutchinson remained silent for a few moments, regarding his patient, who he evidently believed was praying. Suddenly Nugent’s eyes opened wide, and he stared up in surprise at the canvas roof over his head as though he beheld some wonderful sight; the colour flowed back into his cheeks and lips, and gradually his face became illumined with a smile of ecstatic joy.
“Yes,” he murmured, “thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory—the victory—victory!” As he spoke his voice rose until the final word was a shout of inexpressible triumph. Then the colour ebbed away again from cheeks and lips, a film seemed to gather over the still open eyes, the death-rattle sounded in the patient’s throat, he gasped once, as if for breath, and then a look of perfect, ineffable peace settled upon the waxen features. Nugent’s gallant soul had gone forth to join the ranks of the great Captain of his salvation.
Chapter Six.
We find new quarters.
It was about half an hour after Nugent’s death that young Parkinson, who had been engaged somewhere outside the tent, came in and said to Hutchinson—
“The launch, under sail, and with only about half a dozen hands in her, has just hove in sight from somewhere up the river. None of the other boats seem to be in company, but as she is flying her ensign at the peak,”—the launch, it may be mentioned, was rigged as a fore-and-aft schooner—“I suppose it’s all right.”