e voice. It was very low,
scarcely more than a murmur, yet it was thrillingly sweet. It might not
be a human voice, after all, just the distant note of a bird in the
forest, or the murmur of a brave little stream, or a summer wind among
green leaves.

He moved a little and became conscious that he was not going back into
that winter region of dusk. His soul instead was steadily moving toward
the light. The beat of his heart grew normal, and then memory in a full
tide rushed upon him. He saw the great cavalry battle with all its red
turmoil, the savage swing of von Boehlen's saber and himself drifting
out into the darkness.

He opened his eyes, the battle vanished, and he saw himself lying upon a
low, wooden platform. His head rested upon a small pillow, a blanket was
under him, and another above him. Turning slowly he saw other men
wrapped in blankets like himself on the platform in a row that stretched
far to right and left. Above was a low roof, but both sides of the
structure were open.

He understood it all in a moment. He had come back to a world of battle
and wounds, and he was one of the wounded. But he listened for the soft,
musical note which he believed now, in his imaginative state, had drawn
him from the mid-region between life and death.

The stalwart figure of a woman in a somber dress with a red cross sewed
upon it passed between him and the light, but he knew that it was not
she who had been singing. He closed his eyes in disappointment, but
reopened them. A man wearing a white jacket and radiating an atmosphere
of drugs now walked before him. He must be a surgeon. At home, surgeons
wore white jackets. Beyond doubt he was one and maybe he was going to
stop at John's cot to treat some terrible wound of which he was not yet
conscious. He shivered a little, but the man passed on, and his heart
beat its relief.

Then a soldier took his place in the bar of light. He was a short, thick
man in a ridiculous, long blue coat, and equally ridiculous, baggy, red
trousers. An obscure cap was cocked in an obscure manner over his ears,
and his face was covered with a beard, black, thick and untrimmed. He
carried a rifle over his shoulder and nobody could mistake him for
anything but a Frenchman. Then he was not a prisoner again, but was in
French hands. That, at least, was a consolation.

It was amusing to lie there and see the people, one by one, pass between
him and the light. He could easily imagine that he w