he
previous four hours, suddenly unnerving me.

"Poor fellow!" she exclaimed. "And it has not been attended to. How
did it happen?"

"A stray ball struck me this morning, when the party under this
gentleman surprised and shot down the French detachment," I answered.

A gleam of almost fiendish ferocity passed like a lightning-flash across
the beautiful face of my fair interrogator at the mention of the French;
but it disappeared again in an instant, and, turning to Benedetto, she
asked with just the slightest ring of harshness in her voice,--

"Is the Padre in camp?"

"He is not," was the reply. "He left us yesterday to go into Ajaccio,
telling us not to expect him back here until late to-night."

"Then I will turn leech myself," said she. "It will not be for the
first time. Fetch me a bowl of water from the stream, Benedetto, and
bid them bring some wine to the tent."

Benedetto departed upon his mission with alacrity, and my hostess, or
whatever she was, rising to her feet, bared her beautiful, round, white
arms to the elbow, drew from a large chest a supply of lint and old
linen, and, arming herself from the same depository with a pair of
scissors, proceeded deftly to slit up from wrist to shoulder the left
sleeve of my jacket and shirt. By the time that this was done,
Benedetto had returned with a bowl of water in one hand, and a jar of
wine in the other. A small quantity of the latter revived my strength
and steadied my nerves, and then this curious pair went to work to dress
my wound, and set the shattered limb, displaying during the operation an
amount of skill on the part of the woman, and of gentleness on that of
the man, for which I was wholly unprepared.

A set of splints, which had evidently seen previous service, was finally
produced and applied, and the arm carefully adjusted in a sling, after
which food was placed before me; and though I was suffering too much
pain and in too feverish a condition to take much, I soon found myself
in a condition of ease which was comfort itself compared with my state
during the earlier part of the day.

At the conclusion of my meal I was advised, or I might say _ordered_, to
lie down upon the pile of rugs which my strange hostess had vacated; an
order which I obeyed gladly, for fatigue and pain together had produced
a feeling of almost utter exhaustion, and, in spite of the anguish of my
wound, I soon dropped off into a doze which was a something between