ON THE SICK LIST.
I awoke to find myself lying on a heap of straw in a mud hovel, having one very narrow door, and a window about a foot square, through which the daylight tried to force a way.
The meagre light from two candles showed that I was not the only inmate of this poverty-stricken dwelling.
Ranged round the walls were five other figures, each on a bundle of straw and wrapped in a bunda.
The air was very close, and there was a strong smell of pigs, which made me think that some unfortunate animals had been turned out, or perhaps converted into pork, to make room for us.
However, I felt warm, and warmth in those days was the greatest happiness.
I positively shuddered at the mere remembrance of the intense cold of the last week or two.
It was all very calm and still, when a man in the opposite corner sat up, and in a high-pitched voice began to sing with all his might the well-known revolutionary song of Petöfi--"Rise, Magyars, rise!"
He was evidently in a high state of fever and perfectly delirious, but he went right through the song without a mistake or a pause, and finished by cheering lustily for Hungary.
Seen by the dim light, the spectacle was wonderfully striking. The bandages stained with blood, the face deadly white, the large, dark, fiery eyes burning with fever, the thin arm, freed from its covering, energetically beating time--all these moved me profoundly.