ard now
matted and clotted with blood.

"Well, what's the verdict?" cried he, sternly; "don't keep me in
suspense."

"I do not perceive any grave symptoms so far--"

"No cant, my good friend, no cant! It's out of place just now. Be
honest, and say what is it to be,--live or die?"

"So far as I can judge, I say, live."

"Well, then, set about the repairs at once. Ask for what you want,--they
'll bring it."

Deeming it better not to occasion any shock whatever to a man in his
state, I forbore declaring who I was, and set about my office with what
skill I could.

With the aid of a Russian surgeon, who spoke German well, I managed to
dress the wounds and bandage the fractured arm, during which the patient
never spoke once, nor, indeed, seemed to be at all concerned in what was
going on.

"You can stay here, I hope," said he to me, when all was finished. "At
least, you 'll see me through the worst of it I can afford to pay, and
pay well."

"I 'll stay," said I, imitating his own laconic way; and no more was
said.

Now, though it was not my intention to pass myself off for a physician,
or derive any, even the smallest advantage from the assumption of such a
character, I saw that, remote as the poor sufferer was from his friends
and country, and totally destitute of even companionship, it would have
been cruel to desert him until he was sufficiently recovered to be left
with servants.

From his calm composure, and the self-control he was able to exercise, I
had formed a far too favorable opinion of his case. When I saw him first
the inflammatory symptoms had not yet set in; so that at my next visit I
found him in a high fever, raving wildly. In his wanderings he imagined
himself ever directing some gigantic enterprise, with hundreds of men at
his command, whose efforts he was cheering or chiding alternately. The
indomitable will of a most resolute nature was displayed in all he said;
and though his bodily sufferings must have been intense, he only alluded
to them to show how little power they had to arrest his activity. His
ever-recurring cry was, "It can be done, men! It can be done! See that
we do it!"

I own that, even though stretched on a sick-bed and raving madly, this
man's unquenchable energy impressed me greatly; and I often fancied to
myself what must have been the resources of such a bold spirit in sad
contrast to a nature pliant and yielding like mine. To the violence of
the first access, there so