'Lend it to me until you come back,' he gasped. 'If these vultures find me they will finish me. I know them. That is better. I shall win through yet.'

I marked where his waggon stood, and left him. The river was distant less than a quarter of a mile, but it lay low, and the banks were steep; and in the darkness it was not easy to find a way down to the water. Succeeding at last--and how still and peaceful it seemed as I bent over the gently flowing surface and heard the plash and gurgle of the willows in the stream!--I filled my bottle and climbed back to the plain level. Here I found a change in progress. At intervals up and down the valley great fires had been kindled. Some of these, burning high already, lit up the wrecked convoy and the dark groups that moved round it, and even threw a red, uncertain glare far up the slopes of the hills. Aided by the light, I hastened back, and finding Ludwig without much difficulty, held the bottle to his lips. He seemed nearly gone, but the draught revived him marvellously.

When he had drunk I asked him if I could do anything else for him. He looked already more like himself.

'Yes,' he said, propping his back against the wheel and speaking with his usual hardihood. 'Tell our little general where I am. That is all. I shall do now we have light. I am not afraid of these skulkers any longer. But here, friend Martin. You asked about your Waldgrave just now?'

'Yes,' I said. 'Has he returned?'

'He never went,' he replied coolly. 'But if I had told you when you first asked me, you would not have gone for water for me. He is down. He fell, as nearly as I can remember, on the farther side of the second fire from here.'

With a curse I ran from him, raging, and searched round that fire and the next, like one beside himself. Many of the dead lay stripped to the skin, so that it was necessary to examine faces. And this ghastly task, performed with trembling fingers and by an uncertain light, took a long time. There were men prowling about with knives and bundles, whom I more than once interrupted in their work; but the sight of my pistol, and my face--for I was full of fierce loathing and would have shot them like rats--drove them off wherever I came. Not once but many times the wounded and dying begged me to stay by them and protect them; but my water was at an end and my time was not my own. I left them, and ran from place to place in a fever of dread, which allowed of no rest or relaxation. At last, when I had well-nigh given up hope, I found him lying half-stripped among a heap of dead and wounded, at the farthest corner of the barricade.

All his finery was gone, and his handsome face and fair hair were stained and bedabbled with dust and blood. But he was not dead. I could feel his heart beating faintly in his breast; and though he lay senseless and showed no other signs of life, I was thankful to find hope remained. I bore him out tenderly, and laid him down by himself and moistened his lips with the drainings of my flask. But what next? I could not leave him; the plunderers who had already robbed him might return at any moment. And yet, without cordials, and coverings, and many things I had not, the feeble spark of life left in him must go out. I stood up and looked round in despair. A lurid glare, a pitiful wailing, a passing of dark figures filled the valley. A hundred round us needed help; a hundred were beyond help. There were none to give it.

I was about to raise him in my arms and carry him in search of it--though I feared the effect of the motion on his wounds--when, to my joy and relief, the measured tramp of footsteps broke on my ears, and I distinguished with delight a party of men approaching with torches. A few mounted officers followed them, and two waggons creaked slowly behind. They were collecting the wounded.

I ran to meet them. 'Quick!' I cried breathlessly. 'This way!'