The other doctor deemed the case a hopeless one, and a cry nearly escaped Fotheringhame when he saw Cecil's form convulsed by a spasm, as the bullet was extracted, and a swoon came over him.
'If he should die in my hands—poor Cecil!' thought the kind-hearted fellow, in great misery of mind; 'or if I am only taking him home to die! That prediction about a violent death, what did it mean? Who the devil made it? Looks too deuced likely to happen!'
And so, while the soft and tender hands of the Sisters of Charity did all those little offices about Cecil that no wife, mother, or sister in blood could have done more ably or kindly, Fotheringhame smoked a cigar close by, full of thought and anxiety, while a long and deep sleep fell upon the patient, a sleep that was worth a hundred nostrums.
'Poor fellow! he is down in his luck, certainly,' thought Fotheringhame; ''gad, I shall rejoice to hear when the doctors think him safe round the corner, and we may start for home.'
When sense came completely back to Cecil, he knew not where he was, nor for some hours thereafter did he exactly comprehend all that had lately happened to him and passed around him; he had lost so much blood, and been thereby so giddy, weak, drowsy, and insensible.
His first recollections were of the battle—of supporting the field-battery, and the charges he had led ere he fell; then the night in the woody hollow—his thirst and the kites hovering over him!
Now he was in a handsome, lofty, and airy room, and on a pretty French couch; a soft flower-scented breeze came through an open window, the hangings of which were partly drawn; and he had also a sense of a woman flitting noiselessly about him, and by her plain black dress and the white band with the red cross on the left arm, her crimped cap and spotless white apron, he recognised in her one of the German nurses or Sisters of Charity, who, the moment she caught his eye and saw him move, gave him a cooling and refreshing drink, glad to find symptoms of recovery in a poor sufferer whose mutterings alone had given her a clue to his wants, while she had felt her heart touched by the utterance of the ever-recurring name of 'Mary'; but her work was nearly done now, as she had nursed him back to health and something like strength.
'Where am I?' he asked, with a husky voice.
'In Belgrade, mein Herr.'
'Belgrade! with whom?'