dding on and on. Medical officers
came from Willett--Weldon and Jermyn--and the surgeon's mate, McLane;
and they talked among themselves, glancing at her curiously, so that I
grew to hate them and their whispers. A fierce desire assailed me to
put an end to all this torture--to seize her, cradle her to my breast,
and gallop day and night to the open air--as though that, and the
fierce strength of my passion must hold back death!

Then, one day--God knows when--the sky widened behind the trees, and I
saw the blue flank of a hill unchoked by timber. Trees grew thinner as
we rode. A brush-field girdled by a fence was passed, then a meadow,
all golden in the sun. Right and left the forest sheered off and fell
away; field on field, hill on hill, the blessed open stretched to a
brimming river, silver and turquoise in the sunshine, and, beyond it,
crowning three hills, the haven!--the old Dutch city, high-roofed,
red-tiled, glimmering like a jewel in the November haze--Albany!

And now, as we breasted the ascent, far away we heard drums beating. A
white cloud shot from the fort, another, another, and after a long
while the dull booming of the guns came floating to us, mixed with the
noise of bells.

Elsin heard and sat up. I bent from my saddle, passing my arm around
her.

"Carus!" she cried, "where have you been through all this dreadful
night?"

"Sweetheart, do you know me?"

"Yes. How soft the sunlight falls! There is a city yonder. I hear
bells." She sank down, her eyes on mine.

"The bells of old Albany, dear. Elsin, Elsin, do you truly know me?"

She smiled, the ghost of the old gay smile, and her listless arms
moved.

Weldon, riding on the other side, nodded to me in quiet content:

"Now all she lacked she may have, Renault," he said, smiling. "All will
be well, thank God! Let her sleep!"

She heard him, watching me as I rode beside her.

"It was only you I lacked, Carus," she murmured dreamily; and, smiling,
fell into a deep, sweet sleep.

Then, as we rode into the first outlying farms, men and women came to
their gates, calling out to us in their Low Dutch jargon, and at first
I scarce heeded them as I rode, so stunned with joy was I to see her
sleeping there in the sunlight, and her white, cool skin and her mouth
soft and moist.

Gun on gun shook the air with swift concussion. The pleasant Dutch
bells swung aloft in mellow harmony. Suddenly, far behind where our
infantry moved in column, I heard ch