Page:Artabanzanus (Ferrar, 1896).djvu/97

Rh contained tasted like delicious tea: I instantaneously felt its invigorating qualities.

'Now,' said the doctor, for such I concluded him to be, 'I must leave you; duty must be done. Keep yourself very quiet. I am overwhelmed with work just now—and such work!—after that cursed battle. I never saw the like of it before; it must have been fought in your honour. A million of men mowing each other down like hay! Old Arty is growing worse. But I must not excite you with my childish prattle. I will come again soon, and when you are well enough we will have a long chat together. I am a rare fellow to talk. I bother Old Arty himself out of his wits when he comes here, which is not very often. He says he can stand everything but the clack of my infernal tongue. But to whom am I talking? I believe I was born to be a magpie. No more at present—no more, or your life won't be worth a farthing candle; no fretting or fuming, or flying through the air on fiery dragons; put away that sort of thing altogether. You'll be stronger when I come back; bye-bye for the present.

This extraordinary chatterbox withdrew accordingly into the adjoining room, and I immediately heard another door grating on its hinges, and the air was filled with horrid cries of agony and despair, and the yells of people in the last extremities of torture and anguish. The door was mercifully shut again, but did that mercy reach the sufferers themselves? This was one of the certain bitter consequences of war—how many others there are it is impossible to say.

The chamber in which I found myself was a small dark room, a single lamp, as I have said, burning on a small table beside me. Being obliged to lie in an immovable position I could not see anything more in the room, and could do nothing but think and dream, in spite of the good doctor's injunctions to the contrary. Ah! what a relief