my last chapter, it is, in the first place, because they are most
imperfectly impressed upon my own memory; and, in the second, they are
of a nature which, whether in the hearing or the telling, can afford
little pleasure; for what if I should enlarge upon a text which runs but
on suffering and sickness, nights of feverish agony, days of anguish,
terrible alternations of hope and fear, ending, at last, in the sad, sad
certainty that skill has found its limit? The art of the surgeon can do
no more, and Maurice Tiernay must consent to lose his leg! Such was
the cruel news I was compelled to listen to as I awoke one morning,
dreaming, and for the first time since my accident, of my life in
Kuffstein. The injuries I had received before being rescued from the
Danube had completed the mischief already begun, and all chance of
saving my limb had now fled. I am not sure if I could not have heard a
sentence of death with more equanimity than the terrible announcement
that I was to drag out existence maimed and crippled--to endure the
helplessness of age with the warm blood and daring passions of youth,
and, worse than all, to forego a career that was already opening with
such glorious prospects of distinction.

Nothing could be more kindly considerate than the mode of communicating
this sad announcement; nor was there omitted anything which could
alleviate the bitterness of the tidings. The undying gratitude of the
Imperial family, their heartfelt sorrow for my suffering, the pains they
had taken to communicate the whole story of my adventure to the Emperor
Napoleon himself, were all insisted on; while the personal visits of the
archdukes, and even the emperor himself, at my sick-bed, were told to me
with every flattery such acts of condescension could convey. Let me not
be thought ungrateful, if all these seemed but a sorry payment for the
terrible sacrifice I was to suffer; and that the glittering crosses
which were already sent to me in recognition, and which now sparkled on
my bed, appeared a poor price for my shattered and wasted limb; and I
vowed to myself, that to be once more strong and in health I 'd change
fortunes with the humblest soldier in the grand army.

After all, it is the doubtful alone can break down the mind and waste
the courage. To the brave man, the inevitable is always the endurable.
Some hours of solitude and reflection brought this conviction to my
heart, and I recalled the rash refusal I had already g