Then, and not until then, Ada Merling quitted her post, and followed. He who watched saw the tall, slight figure pass under the deep archway, saw the sentries present arms, saw the heavy gates shut. The last sightseers straggled away, and Dunoisse went down the hill-path, weary, and faint, and limping, yet happier and more at peace than he had been for many years. A tumbledown wooden eating-house, kept by a Greek named Demetrios, stood in those days near the landing-quay of Scutari. Dunoisse obtained a miserable room with a poor bed in it, slept for an hour or two, ate what they put before him, and returned to the Hospital.
CI
Changes were taking place in that vast, uncleanly caravanserai. Soldiers’ wives were washing linen, surgeons and nurses were passing to and fro. Working-parties of orderlies with barrows, brooms, and shovels, were gathering up waste-paper and vegetable refuse; removing from the great quadrangle derelict tin cans, piles of cast-off rags, and decomposing carcasses of cats and dogs. Others were bringing buckets of broth, milk, tea, and coffee, and trays of bread from the huge untidy kitchens, soon to be transformed into models of good management and economical excellence. Others—for the Red Reaper made his harvest daily—so that there was always room for more—no matter how many were received into the Hospital—were carrying the dead to the long trenches full of quicklime that scarred the hillside under the nightingale-haunted cypresses of the vast Cemetery of Scutari.
Fortune favored Dunoisse in his search for Ada Merling. He found her standing near a storehouse, barred, and fastened with its heavy Turkish lock, and guarded by a stolid Irish infantryman. Two nuns were with her—a minor official of the Hospital argued and gesticulated—the situation was evidently one of strain. As Dunoisse drew near, he heard her say to this personage:
“But, my good sir, this store contains most of the bales and cases that I brought with me from England. And I am in authority here!”
The man stammered something about an order from the Deputy Inspector-General.
She returned:
“It has been applied for, and has not been received; and patients are hourly dying for want of the nourishment and comforts that are contained in this store. Under the circumstances——”
“Under the circumstances there is nothing for it but to wait! Excuse me, madam!”