Page:Carroll - Sylvie and Bruno Concluded.djvu/321

XVIII] Local Board, and safely lodged in the County Hospital: and the place is now veritably 'a city of the dead,' without a single human voice to break its silence.

''The rescuing party consisted of six sturdy fellowsfishermen from the neighbourhooddirected by the resident Physician of the Hospital, who came over for that purpose, heading a train of hospital-ambulances. The six men had been selectedfrom a much larger number who had volunteered for this peaceful 'forlorn hope'for their strength and robust health, as the expedition was coiisidered to be, even now, when the malady has expended its chief force, not unattended with danger.''

''Every precaution that science could suggest, against the risk of infection, was adopted: and the sufferers were tenderly carried on litters, one by one, up the steep hill, and placed in the ambulances which, each provided with a hospital nurse, were waiting on the level road. The fifteen miles, to the Hospital, were done at a walking-pace, as some of the patients were in too prostrate a condition to bear jolting, and the journey occupied the whole afternoon.''