"The deuce he would! Do you think so, A——?"
"Of course. You know Cameron; there is not a stricter fellow in the service,—a regular martinet. But you had better take your pen, and endeavour to satisfy him by a sheet of foolscap. 'Tis well you left us so soon last night, as you will require a clear head this morning. Mine aches as if it would fall in pieces; but I mean to call at the wine-house, (you know the saying,) 'to take a hair of the dog that bit me.'"
"A very strange fellow, the French cuirassier, Claude?" observed Macdonald.
"A hare-brained spark as ever I met with. He has played sad mischief with all ours. We shall not have one officer to each company on parade this morning. A dozen, I believe, are lying under the table with himself. Campbell, old Macdonald, and our most seasoned topers were put to their mettle by him. But give me your sword, Stuart; the colonel is waiting for it, but I trust will not keep it long. You must endeavour to make your peace with him as soon as possible, and not be under any fear of being put in Coventry by our mess: we know you too well to do that."
Ronald felt considerable chagrin as he beheld Claude A——, the adjutant, carry off his weapon and found himself under arrest, and in imminent danger of being arraigned before a general court-martial. He composed himself to indite, for the colonel's perusal, an account of his absence, which he found a very delicate and difficult matter, as he was unwilling that the mess should get hold of poor Catalina's name to make it a subject of ridicule, and quiz him about it, which he feared would be done unmercifully, if he took not some stern means to stop them.
Nearly a quire of paper was expended before he could get a despatch worded to his own and Macdonald's satisfaction,—one giving as brief and concise an account as possible of his adventures, and declaring that the reason of his sudden departure from Almarez was to free the sister of Don Alvaro, of Villa Franca, from Cifuentes the well-known bandit, who had accompanied the first brigade disguised as a priest. Evan was despatched with the letter to the colonel's quarters, while Stuart and Macdonald, accompanied by De Mesmai, went to visit D'Estouville,—the unfortunate commandant of fort Napoleon, who was dying of the wound he had received from the officer of the 71st.
An old chapel, situated near the baths of Diana, had been appropriated as an hospital for those wounded at the forts of Almarez. The design of some gothic architect when the art was in its infancy, it was a low dark building, with short clumsy columns, gloomy arches, enormously thick walls, and dismal little windows, between the thick mullions of which the grey day-light seemed to struggle to be seen. On the worn flight of steps ascending to the great door-way, lay a few dozen legs, arms, hands, and feet, which had been amputated and were lying there until the hospital orderlies were at leisure to inter them. During the last war, the reckless manner in which medical officers hewed off wounded limbs, without attempting to reduce a fracture, has been often reprehended. What a scene of multiplied human misery the interior of the chapel presented! The wounded soldiers, British and French, to the number of some hundreds, lay in ranks on the damp pavement, over which a little straw was thrown, as no bedding could be given them. Deep and hollow groans of acute agony and suffering sounded from many parts of the building, and the continual rustling of the straw announced the impatient restlessness of sickness and pain. Here lay the gallant and high-spirited conscript, brooding gloomily, and almost weeping, over those visions of glory, which the amputation of a leg had suddenly cut short; and there the stern grenadier of the Imperial guard lay coolly surveying his own blood as it trickled through the straw, and filled the carved letters of epitaphs on the pavement stones. Near him lay his conqueror, the British soldier, shorn of a limb, dejected and miserable, having nothing before him now but a "passport to beg," and the poor apology for a pension which grateful Britain bestows on her defenders, with the happy resource of starving in a parish workhouse. All were pale as death, and all disfigured by blood and bandages,—grisly, ghastly, unwashed, and unshaven. Often as they passed up the aisle, Stuart and Macdonald held the tin canteen to the parched lips of some wounded man, who drank greedily of the hot stale water it contained, and prayed them piteously to adjust his bandages, or by doing some little office to alleviate his pain. Some were dying, and lay convulsed among their straw, with the death-rattle sounding in their throat—expiring, unheeded and uncared for, without a friend to behold them or a hand to close their eyes; and as soon as they were cold, they were seized by the hospital orderlies,[*] and carried off for interment.
[*] Well-conducted soldiers, excused from duty to attend the sick.
A wretched combination of misery, pain, and sorrow the interior of that little chapel presented, and it made a deeper impression on Stuart and Alister than on De Mesmai, who was an older soldier, and had beheld, in twenty years' campaigning, too much bloodshed and agony to recoil at the sight of it there; but he loudly expressed his pleasure at beholding the attention paid to his countrymen. He saw that no distinction was made; the wounded of both nations received the same attendance from the medical officers and their orderlies; and more than one grenadier of the Guard allowed his dark features to relax into a grim smile, as his red-coated attendants held up his head, to pour down his throat some dose of disagreeable stuff.
"Ha! Stewart," said Ronald, catching his namesake the assistant-surgeon by the belt as he was rushing past, with a saw in one hand and a long knife gleaming in the other.