seemed to her, too, that she
would be helping him by cleansing him a little. "Will it? it is only
your leg that is hurt; it won't amount to anything."

The captain made an effort to rouse himself from his semi-conscious
state, and opened his eyes. He recognized his friends and greeted them
with a faint smile.

"Yes, it is only the leg. I was not even aware of being hit; I thought I
had made a misstep and fallen--" He spoke with great difficulty. "Oh! I
am so thirsty!"

Mme. Delaherche, who was standing at the other side of the mattress,
looking down compassionately on the young man, hastily left the room.
She returned with a glass and a carafe of water into which a little
cognac had been poured, and when the captain had greedily swallowed the
contents of the glass, she distributed what remained in the carafe
among the occupants of the adjacent beds, who begged with trembling
outstretched hands and tearful voices for a drop. A zouave, for whom
there was none left, sobbed like a child in his disappointment.

Delaherche was meantime trying to gain the major's ear to see if he
could not prevail on him to take up the captain's case out of
its regular turn. Bouroche came into the room just then, with his
blood-stained apron and lion's mane hanging in confusion about his
perspiring face, and the men raised their heads as he passed and
endeavored to stop him, all clamoring at once for recognition and
immediate attention: "This way, major! It's my turn, major!" Faltering
words of entreaty went up to him, trembling hands clutched at his
garments, but he, wrapped up in the work that lay before him and puffing
with his laborious exertions, continued to plan and calculate and
listened to none of them. He communed with himself aloud, counting them
over with his finger and classifying them, assigning them their numbers;
this one first, then that one, then that other fellow; one, two, three;
the jaw, the arm, then the thigh; while the assistant who accompanied
him on his round made himself all ears in his effort to memorize his
directions.

"Major," said Delaherche, plucking him by the sleeve, "there is an
officer over here, Captain Beaudoin--"

Bouroche interrupted him. "What, Beaudoin here! Ah, the poor devil!" And
he crossed over at once to the side of the wounded man. A single glance,
however, must have sufficed to show him that the case was a bad one,
for he added in the same breath, without even stooping to examine the
in