"He is not so happy," said Drake, savagely; "he has only fainted. He has days of such torture as this before him. It would be a mercy to him, and I'm not sure but good religion, to put him outside of the dead line. I wonder why they don't tie us to the cannon's mouth at once. Here! you! guard, there! holla!"
This last was addressed to a soldier in the Rebel gray, who was proceeding leisurely past, but who, on hearing himself so unceremoniously summoned, turned and came slowly towards them.
"Here is a man," said Drake, passionately, "who is dying, not because it pleases God to take him, but because it pleases you to starve him. We have no wood to make a fire, no food to give him, unless it is this scrap of meal that he cannot swallow; but you can save him, and will, if you are a man, and have a man's heart under that dress."
The soldier stared, but, being a phlegmatic animal, heard him quietly to the end, and opened his jaws to answer with due deliberation.
"If you don't like our rules, you shouldn't have come here, you know. And we haven't any orders about wood: you are to look out for yourselves. As for the man, if he's sick, why don't you take him to the stockade yonder, where the doctor is examining for admittance to the hospital?—though I don't see the use: he's too far gone."
Drake and Corny lifted the poor wasted frame, that seemed all too frail to hold the nickering, struggling breath, and carried it to a small stockade crowded with men desirous to enter the hospital. The first assistant to whom they applied was a nervous porcupine, fretted with overwork, and repulsed them roughly.
"What is the use of bringing a dead man here? We have enough living ones on hand."
"Och, and that's no raison, sence it's aisy to see thim's the kind you like best," muttered Corny; but Drake silenced him hastily.
"Keep a civil tongue, Corny. They're the masters here; and it will only be the worse for poor Ireland, if you anger them. Here's another; we'll try him."
But Number Two was Sir Imperturbability, and, without even looking towards them, answered, in a hard, even tone, "Our number is filled; you are too late," and, without lifting an eyelash, went on with his work.