CHAPTER IX.
ROSE.
"Myles!"
"Ay, sweetheart, here am I."
"A little drink—nay, I want it not. I was dreaming thy cousin Barbara was making a sallet, and I was fain to taste it, it looked so cool and fresh,—and I wakened. I would well like some sallet, Myles."
"As soon as the day dawns, my Rose, I will go and look for herbs. I marked some sorrel on the hill yester e'en, albeit something dry and sere."
"Why doth the ship roll so sorely, Myles?"
"Thou 'rt not on shipboard, child, but in our little hospital here ashore. Mindest thou not how thou didst mourn and cry to me, 'Take me ashore, Myles, take me ashore, that I may breathe sweet air and live.' So I lapped thee in blankets and brought thee, to-morrow is a se'nnight. Like you not this sweet new dwelling?"
"Well enow; but sweet air will not make me live if the time hath come for me to die." And the sick girl smiled wanly, inscrutably, the smile of one who knows what he will not say.
The face of the fearless soldier grew white with terror, and almost angrily he replied,—