"He is making a hard fight!"
In startling response comes:
"'I was ever a fighter, so one fight more,
The best and the last!'"
His view seems dazzled by the lights, and the good priest suggests that his eyes be shaded.
"'I would hate that death bandaged my eyes and forbore
and bade me creep past!'"
For a while Oswald seems quietly sleeping, then in confused accents mutters, and starting up, calls out:
"'Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set
And blew; Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came.'"
These quotations fall upon the ears of priest and Sister of Charity with awfully solemn accents. They feel in presence of double mystery of life and death.
There is now naught to break the impressive silence but ticking of a clock and distant rumble of the elevated trains. No word had been uttered by this patient giving any clew to his religious training. The friend at whose cot this stranger so faithfully watched was a professed believer. Too, those fixed glances at the crucifix and solemn utterances suggested belief in the "atoning merits." Priest and nun exchange inquiring looks, then intently gaze at that quiet sleeper.
Oswald stirs, opens his eyes, tosses feebly, and in low tones says: