Other things bothered him; he was convinced that his mother was in the room. At intervals he was aware of Hallam's handsome face, cut out like a paper picture from Harper's Weekly and pasted flat on the tent wall. Also there were too many fire zouaves around his bed—if it was a bed, this vague vibrating hammock he occupied. It was much more like a hollow nook inside a gigantic pendulum which swung eternally to and fro until it swung him into senselessness—or aroused him with fierce struggles to escape. But his mother's slender hand sometimes arrested the maddening motion, or—and this was curiously restful—she cleverly transferred him to a cradle, which she rocked, leaning close over him. Only she kept him wrapped up too warmly.
And after a long while there came a day when his face became cooler, and his skin grew wet with sweat; and on that day he partly unclosed his eyes and saw Colonel Arran sitting beside him.
Surprised, he attempted to sit up, but not a muscle of his body obeyed him, and he lay there stupid, inert, hollow eyes fixed meaninglessly on his superior, who spoke cautiously.
"Berkley, do you know me?"
His lips twitched a voiceless affirmative.
Colonel Arran said: "You are going to get well, now. . . . Get well quickly, because—the regiment misses you. . . . What is it you desire to say? Make the effort if you wish."
Berkley's sunken eyes remained focussed on space; he was trying to consider. Then they turned painfully toward Colonel Arran again.
"Ailsa Paige?" he whispered.
The other said quietly: "She is at the base hospital near Azalea. I have seen her. She is well. . . . I did not tell her you were ill. She could not have left anyway. . . . Matters are not going well with the army, Berkley."
"Whipped?" His lips barely formed the question.