And a huge, gaunt lobo wolf, lying at the crest of the draw, flung up his gray head and howled back his awful note—seemingly in echo: "There is no God! no God!"
[1] Note by Author—Canada's official executioner at this period.
CHAPTER XVI
"Feel my pulse, sir, if you want to,
but it ain't much use to try—"
"Never say that," said the Surgeon,
as he smothered down a sigh:
"Chuck a brace, for it won't do, man,
for a soldier to say die!"
"What you say don't make no diffrunce, Doctor,
an'—you wouldn't lie. . . ."
"THE OLD SERGEANT"
"Git there! Come a-Haw-r-r, then! Whoa!" With a flourish, Constable Miles Sloan, the Regimental Teamster, swung the leaders of his splendid four-in-hand and pulled up at the front entrance of the Holy Cross Hospital. Slewing around on his high box-seat he addressed himself to the drag's occupants, Slavin and Yorke.
"I don't know whether they will let you see him, or not," he remarked doubtfully, "he's a pretty sick man."
"We will chance ut, anyway," mumbled Slavin, as he and Yorke climbed out of the rig. "Ye'd best wait awhile, Miles! We shan't be long."
Quietly—very quietly, Sister Marthe opened the door of room Number Fifty-six, and with list-slippered noiselessness stepped out into the corridor.
"Oh, Mon Dieu!" she ejaculated, startled at the sudden apparition of two scarlet-coated figures standing motionless outside the door, "Oh, m'sieurs, 'ow you fright me!" and the expressive eyes under the white coif and the shoulders and supple hands of the French-Canadian Nursing-Sister made great play.
Yorke saluted her with grave courtesy. "Sister," he said anxiously, "how is Constable Redmond doing? Can we see him?"