tantial
comforts. You might see officers and strangers, visitors to the camp,
riding about the field on this errand of mercy. And this,
although--surely it could not have been intentional--Russian guns
still played upon the scene of action. There were many others there,
bent on a more selfish task. The plunderers were busy everywhere. It
was marvellous to see how eagerly the French stripped the dead of what
was valuable, not always, in their brutal work, paying much regard to
the presence of a lady. Some of the officers, when I complained rather
angrily, laughed, and said it was spoiling the Egyptians; but I _do_
think the Israelites spared their enemies those garments, which,
perhaps, were not so unmentionable in those days as they have since
become.

I attended to the wounds of many French and Sardinians, and helped to
lift them into the ambulances, which came tearing up to the scene of
action. I derived no little gratification from being able to dress the
wounds of several Russians; indeed, they were as kindly treated as the
others. One of them was badly shot in the lower jaw, and was beyond my
or any human skill. Incautiously I inserted my finger into his mouth
to feel where the ball had lodged, and his teeth closed upon it, in
the agonies of death, so tightly that I had to call to those around to
release it, which was not done until it had been bitten so deeply that
I shall carry the scar with me to my grave. Poor fellow, he meant me
no harm, for, as the near approach of death softened his features, a
smile spread over his rough inexpressive face, and so he died.

I attended another Russian, a handsome fellow, and an officer, shot in
the side, who bore his cruel suffering with a firmness that was very
noble. In return for the little use I was to him, he took a ring off
his finger and gave it to me, and after I had helped to lift him into
the ambulance he kissed my hand and smiled far more thanks than I had
earned. I do not know whether he survived his wounds, but I fear not.
Many others, on that day, gave me thanks in words the meaning of which
was lost upon me, and all of them in that one common language of the
whole world--smiles.

I carried two patients off the field; one a French officer wounded on
the hip, who chose to go back to Spring Hill and be attended by me
there, and who, on leaving, told us that he was a relative of the
Marshal (Pelissier); the other, a poor Cossack colt I found running
round its d