ek and
forehead. Being partly healed, it was no longer bandaged, but held
together with strips of that transparent plaster which I never see
without a shiver and swift recollections of scenes with which it is
associated in my mind. Part of his black hair had been shorn away, and
one eye was nearly closed; pain so distorted, and the cruel sabre-cut
so marred that portion of his face, that, when I saw it, I felt as if a
fine medal had been suddenly reversed, showing me a far more striking
type of human suffering and wrong than Michel Angelo's bronze prisoner.
By one of those inexplicable processes that often teach us how little
we understand ourselves, my purpose was suddenly changed, and though I
went in to offer comfort as a friend, I merely gave an order as a
mistress.

"Will you open these windows? this man needs more air."

He obeyed at once, and, as he slowly urged up the unruly sash, the
handsome profile was again turned toward me, and again I was possessed
by my first impression so strongly that I involuntarily said,--

"Thank you, Sir."

Perhaps it was fancy, but I thought that in the look of mingled
surprise and something like reproach which he gave me there was also a
trace of grateful pleasure. But he said, in that tone of spiritless
humility these poor souls learn so soon,--

"I ain't a white man, Ma'am, I'm a contraband."

"Yes, I know it; but a contraband is a free man, and I heartily
congratulate you."

He liked that; his face shone, he squared his shoulders, lifted his
head, and looked me full in the eye with a brisk--

"Thank ye, Ma'am; anything more to do fer yer?"

"Doctor Franck thought you would help me with this man, as there are
many patients and few nurses or attendants. Have you had the fever?"

"No, Ma'am."

"They should have thought of that when they put him here; wounds and
fevers should not be together. I'll try to get you moved."

He laughed a sudden laugh,--if he had been a white man, I should have
called it scornful; as he was a few shades darker than myself, I
suppose it must be considered an insolent, or at least an unmannerly
one.

"It don't matter, Ma'am. I'd rather be up here with the fever than down
with those niggers; and there ain't no other place fer me."

Poor fellow! that was true. No ward in all the hospital would take him
in to lie side by side with the most miserable white wreck there. Like
the bat in Aesop's fable, he belonged to neither race; and the pr