eat!
In brief time now the surgeon will be here.
The French retreat--pushed from Elvina far.

MOORE

That's good! Is Paget anywhere about?

COLBORNE

He's at the front, Sir John.

MOORE

Remembrance to him!

[Enter two surgeons.]

Ah, doctors,--you can scarcely mend up me.--
And yet I feel so tough--I have feverish fears
My dying will waste a long and tedious while;
But not too long, I hope!

SURGEONS [after a hasty examination]

You must be borne
In to your lodgings instantly, Sir John.
Please strive to stand the motion--if you can;
They will keep step, and bear you steadily.

MOORE

Anything.... Surely fainter ebbs that fire?

COLBORNE

Yes: we must be advancing everywhere:
Colbert their General, too, they have lost, I learn.

[They lift him by stretching their sashes under the blanket, and
begin moving off. A light waggon enters.]

MOORE

Who's in that waggon?

HARDINGE

Colonel Wynch, Sir John.
He's wounded, but he urges you to take it.

MOORE

No. I will not. This suits.... Don't come with me;
There's more for you to do out here as yet. [Cheerful shouts.]
A-ha! 'Tis THIS way I have wished to die!

[Exeunt slowly in the twilight MOORE, bearers, surgeons, etc.,
towards Coruna. The scene darkens.]

SCENE IV

CORUNA. NEAR THE RAMPARTS

[It is just before dawn on the following morning, objects being
still indistinct. The features of the elevated enclosure of San
Carlos can be recognized in dim outline, and also those of the
Old Town of Coruna around, though scarcely a lamp is shining.
The numerous transports in the harbour beneath have still their
riding-lights burning.

In a nook of the town walls a lantern glimmers. Some English
soldiers of the Ninth regiment are hastily digging a grave there
with extemporized tools.]

A VOICE [from the gloom some distance off]

"I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that
believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live."

[The soldiers look up, and see entering at the further end of the
patch of ground a slow procession. It advances by the light of
lanterns in the hands of some members of it. At moments the fitful
rays fall upon bearers carrying a coffinless body rolled in a
blanket, with a military cloak rou