wo
assistant-surgeons and three hospital stewards whom he had retained,
leaving two assistants on the field, would doubtless be sufficient to
perform what operations were necessary. He had also a corps of dressers
under him. But he was not gentle in manner and language, for all he did
was done impulsively, zealously, with all his heart and soul.

"_Tonnerre de Dieu!_ how do you suppose we are going to distinguish
the cases from one another when they begin to come in presently? Take
a piece of charcoal and number each bed with a big figure on the wall
overhead, and place those mattresses closer together, do you hear?
We can strew some straw on the floor in that corner if it becomes
necessary."

The guns were barking, preparing his work for him; he knew that at any
moment now the first carriage might drive up and discharge its load of
maimed and bleeding flesh, and he hastened to get all in readiness
in the great, bare room. Outside in the shed the preparations were of
another nature: the chests were opened and their contents arranged
in order on a table, packages of lint, bandages, compresses, rollers,
splints for fractured limbs, while on another table, alongside a great
jar of cerate and a bottle of chloroform, were the surgical cases with
their blood-curdling array of glittering instruments, probes, forceps,
bistouries, scalpels, scissors, saws, an arsenal of implements of every
imaginable shape adapted to pierce, cut, slice, rend, crush. But there
was a deficient supply of basins.

"You must have pails, pots, jars about the house--something that will
hold water. We can't work besmeared with blood all day, that's certain.
And sponges, try to get me some sponges."

Madame Delaherche hurried away and returned, followed by three women
bearing a supply of the desired vessels. Gilberte, standing by the table
where the instruments were laid out, summoned Henriette to her side by
a look and pointed to them with a little shudder. They grasped each
other's hand and stood for a moment without speaking, but their mute
clasp was eloquent of the solemn feeling of terror and pity that filled
both their souls. And yet there was a difference, for one retained, even
in her distress, the involuntary smile of her bright youth, while in the
eyes of the other, pale as death, was the grave earnestness of the heart
which, one love lost, can never love again.

"How terrible it must be, dear, to have an arm or leg cut off!"

"Poor fell