"What the deuce do you mean? I took orf his leg successfully in the Turkish hospital."
"And sure, afther ye war gone, the Turkish Hospital sergeant, who was blazing drunk with raki, made up a prescription of all the dhrugs in the place, saying some o' them would surely compose him."
"Well—well?"
"The farrier-sergeant took it, sir; and he's now composed enough, poor man, and laying in the trinches, waitin' to be covered up wid green sods, if they can be got in that red valley ov blood and murder."
Some brandy given by Hartshorn now rallied me a little, and I inquired for Willie Pitblado. Lanty informed me that he was in a hospital tent, and enduring great pain.
Pitblado's sword had broken in his hand; he was looking wildly round him for another, when poor Studhome, who lay dying beneath ahorse, placed his own sword in Willie's hand, saying—
"Use it, and wear it for my sake. All's over with me!"
Pitblado cut down two Russian gunners, and actually bore Studhome for some paces in his arms, before he discovered that he was dead, and then a rifle bullet stretched him on the field.
A few men were now crawling back from the valley, where several dismounted guns and dead bodies were all that remained of the Russian host, which had now fallen back.
Numbers of horses, many of them severely wounded, with bridles hanging loose, and saddles all bloody, careered along the green ridges, where they were caught by the Turks. Some came trotting quietly into quarters, when they heard the trumpet sound for "corn"; others cropped the bloody herbage in the Valley of Death; and not a few who remained beside their fallen riders were found by the burial parties.