'Turn him over!'
The flame of the hurricane-lamp flickered ruddily, and lighted up a calm, bland face. The firm lips were slightly parted in a smile, which seemed to be, in some subtle way, interrogative in its tendency. The eyes were wide open, but not unpleasantly so, and their expression was one of meek, gentle surprise. The whole incongruous face as it reposed there, looking upwards to its Creator, seemed to say, 'Why?'
Tefik rose to his full height.
'Le philosophic,' he murmured, with a little shake of the head. 'Ah! but that is a pity—a thousand pities!'
He stood with the lamp in his hand, gazing upwards at the stars, now peeping out in the rifts of heavy cloud. Unconsciously he had turned his grave young eyes to the West—towards civilization and England.
After a moment he turned and went on his way, stumbling in the dark over the dead and wounded.
CHAPTER XV.
THE END OF IT ALL.
All through the rough autumn, and on into midwinter, Plevna held out. All the world waited and watched, sympathizing, as is its way, with the side where sheer pluck seems predominant.
At Wyl's Hall, Mrs. Wylie and Brenda lived on in their quiet way; and, to these two, life soon assumed a calm, unruffled regularity. Small local incidents took to themselves a greater importance, and the larger events of the world reached them only as an echo.