Hundreds of these poor men, worn out by every imaginable kind of suffering, were constantly arriving at the already crowded hospitals at Scutari. As many as sixty men were known to die in a single night, and for two months the death rate stood at 60 per cent.
Florence Nightingale seemed to be everywhere, and particularly did her deep religious feelings prompt her to speak with the dying and point their thoughts to heaven. She was a ministering angel alike for soul and body. In her ear was often murmured the last message home, and to her was entrusted the bit of money, the watch, or the cherished keepsake to be sent to wife or sweetheart. How faithfully these dying commissions were carried out, in spite of overwhelming duties to the living, is known to families all over the land who have loved ones sleeping beneath the cypress-trees on the shores of the Bosphorus.
At night, after the surgeons had gone their rounds, the figure of the Lady-in-Chief was seen in her simple black dress, white apron, and small closely fitting white cap gliding through the wards and corridors carrying a tiny lamp in her hand. By its light she saw where pain was greatest, where the Angel of Death was about to descend, and she would pause to smooth a pillow, or give the word of consolation.
Florence Nightingale’s sublime courage was strikingly shown in these nocturnal rounds. Then, when silence for the most part reigned, and the sufferers were courting slumber, the ear was most likely to be startled by some heart-breaking sound. The delirious call of the poor emaciated fellow who still fancied himself in the trenches before Sebastopol, or on the blood-stained ridges of Inkerman fighting for dear life, the smothered sob at thought of home, the hacking cough, the groan of agony, the gasp of death—these were the sounds which fell on the stillness as “the lady with the lamp” moved from bed to bed. One such experience would be a memory for a life-time, but night after night, week after week, and month after month, our heroine fulfilled this sad and tender ministry to the suffering. Longfellow paid his beautiful tribute to the lady with the lamp in verses which impel quotation, familiar as they are:—
So in that house of misery,
A lady with a lamp I see
Pass through the glimmering gloom,
And flit from room to room.
And slowly, as in a dream of bliss,
The speechless sufferer turns to kiss