easure his sufferings, he was propped up with pillows
and cushions to a half-sitting posture, and so placed that his gaze
could rest upon the open sea, which lay calm and waveless beneath his
window; but even on this his eyes wandered vaguely, as though already
all fixity of thought was fled, and that the world and its scenes had
ceased to move or interest him. He was in that state of exhaustion which
follows great loss of blood, and in which the brain wanders dreamily and
incoherently, though ready at any sudden question to arouse itself to an
effort of right reason.

A faint, sad smile, a little nod, a gesture of the hand, were tokens
that one by one his comrades recorded of their last interview with him;
and now all were gone, and he was alone. A low murmur of voices at his
door bespoke several persons in earnest conversation, but the sounds
never reached the ears of the sick man.

"He spoke of making a will, then?" said Classon, in a whisper.

"Yes, sir," replied the sergeant. "He asked several times if there was
not some one who could take down his wishes in writing, and let him sign
it before witnesses."

"That will do admirably," said Paul, pushing his way into the room,
closely followed by Terry Driscoll. "Ah, Driscoll," said Paul,
unctuously, "if we were moralists instead of poor, frail, time-serving
creatures as we are, what a lesson might we not read in the fate of the
poor fellow that lies there!"

"Ay, indeed!" sighed out Terry, assentingly.

"What an empty sound 'my Lord' is, when a man comes to that!" said
Paul, in the same solemn tone, giving, however, to the words "my Lord" a
startling distinctness that immediately struck upon the sick man's ear.
Conway quickly looked up and fixed his eyes on the speaker.

"Is it all true, then,--am I not dreaming?" asked the wounded soldier,
eagerly.

"Every word of it true, my Lord," said Classon, sitting down beside the
bed.

"And I was the first, my Lord, to bring out the news," interposed Terry.
"'Twas myself found the papers in an old farm-house, and showed them to
Davenport Dunn."

"Hush, don't you see that you only confuse him?" whispered Classon,
cautiously.

"Dunn, Dunn," muttered Conway, trying to recollect. "Yes, we met at poor
Kellett's funeral,--poor Kellett! the last of the Albueras!"

"A gallant soldier, I have heard," chimed in Classon, merely to lead him
on.

"Not a whit more so than his son Jack. Where is he?--where is Jack?"

None