He looked up and recognised Nigel.
"You too, boy?"
"Not badly!" said Nigel.
"Go on to Ratisbon! You'll be well enough to fight the Swede again in three weeks!" His voice faltered even in its weakness. He turned his head away a minute or two. Nigel knew what the old warrior was thinking, and could not find it in him to utter the worthless consolatory hopes that he might.
"But I shall never fight again! The Swede has beaten me. I would that we had fought in the open and not cooped up behind trenches and rivers. Well! It is Wallenstein's chance now, and for me nothing but the priest's viaticum. God be with you, boy!"
Nigel clasped his thin sword-hand with his own, and the young soldier of fortune looked into the eyes, the stern, sharp, wistful, wild eyes of the old soldier, who was doomed beyond possible help of army surgeon, and the old man knew that the young one held him for a brave man, who had been staunch to his profession, and loyal to the Emperor even to the death. There was more comfort in Nigel's eyes than in a thousand protestations from men who had never faced ball and pike-thrust on a hard-fought field.
Nigel gulped down something and whispered hoarsely—
"Good-bye, General. The Holy Saints help you!"
His orderlies carried him out, and two days afterwards Tilly died, the sound of Gustavus' cannon, without the walls of Ingolstadt, ringing in his ears.
Nigel reached Ratisbon in the train of the troops sent on to defend it. Every day he was under the ministrations of the Jesuit, who combined the art of the healer with that of spiritual director, as if he had never, sword in hand, hewn down Swedish pikemen on the bridge at the Lech. Every day made him gain something of ease. And once lodged in a comfortable upper room at Ratisbon he began to recover the usage of his legs.