lood! It's not the blood!" The words tumbled over
each other, well-nigh incoherent in their fevered utterance. And
suddenly Noel flung up his arms above his head with a wild and anguished
cry. "My God! I'm blind! I'm blind!"

With the cry his strength--that fiery strength born of
emergency--collapsed quite suddenly. His knees doubled under him. He
fell forward in utter, overwhelming impotence, and lay prone and
senseless at the Colonel's feet....

CHAPTER XXIV

THE BIG, BIG GAME OF LIFE

It was many hours later that understanding returned to Noel.

He came to himself abruptly, in utter darkness, with the horror of it
still strong within his soul. His head was swathed in bandages. He
turned it to and fro with restless jerks.

"And will ye please to lie quiet?" said the voice of the Irish
regimental surgeon peremptorily by his side.

Noel, also Irish, collected his forces and made reply. "No. Why the
devil should I? Where am I? What's going to happen to me? Am I--am I
blind for life?"

The falter in the words spoke to the tenseness of his suspense. The
doctor answered instantly, with more of kindliness than judgment.
"Faith, no! It's not so bad as that. But ye'll have to pretend ye are
for the present, or, egad, ye will be before ye've done. We brought ye
to the Musgraves' shanty. Mrs. Musgrave wanted the care of ye. Damn'
quare taste on her part, I'm thinking. And now ye're not to talk any
more; but drink this stuff like a good boy and go to sleep."

Noel drank with disgust; the taste of blood was still in his mouth. He
had never been ill in his life before, and he had not the smallest
intention of obeying the doctor's orders.

"Let's hear what happened!" he said impatiently. "Oh, leave me alone,
do! When can I have this beastly bandage off my eyes?"

"Not for a very long while, my son." The doctor's voice was jaunty, but
the eyes that looked at the blind, swathed face were full of pity. "And
don't ye go loosening it when my back's turned, or it isn't meself
that'll be answerable for the consequences."

"Oh, damn the consequences!" said Noel. "I want to get up."

"And that ye can't!" was the doctor's prompt rejoinder. "Ye'll just lie
quiet till further orders. Ye'll find yourself as weak as a rat
moreover, when ye start to move about. It's only the fever in your veins
that makes ye want to try."

Noel straightened himself in the bed. He was becoming aware of a fiery,
throbbing torture beneath th