“With ceaseless devotion and energy the instructions were obeyed. What number of lives were saved—saved even in that pest-stricken hospital of Kullali—by a long, gentle watchfulness, when science almost despaired, no statistics, of course, can show; and still less can they gauge or record the alleviation of misery effected by care such as this; but apparent to all was the softened demeanour of the soldier when he saw approaching his pallet some tender, gracious lady intent to assuage his suffering, to give him the blessing of hope, to bring him the food he liked, and withal—when she came with the medicine—to rule him like a sick child. Coarse expressions and oaths deriving from barracks and camps died out in the wards as though exorcised by the sacred spell of her presence, and gave way to murmurs of gratitude. When conversing in this softened mood with the lady appointed to nurse him, the soldier used often to speak as though the worship he owed her and the worship he owed to Heaven were blending into one sentiment; and sometimes, indeed, he disclosed a wild faith in the ministering angel that strained beyond the grave. ‘Oh!’ said one to the lady he saw bending over his pallet, ‘you are taking me on the way to heaven; don’t forsake me now!’ When a man was under delirium, its magic force almost always transported him to the home of his childhood, and made him indeed a child—a child crying, ‘Mother! mother!’ Amongst the men generally, notwithstanding their moments of fitful piety, there still glowed a savage desire for the fall of Sebastopol. More than once—wafted up from Constantinople—the sound of great guns was believed to announce a victory, and sometimes there came into the wards fresh tidings of combat brought down from our army in front of the long-besieged stronghold. When this happened, almost all of the sufferers who had not yet lost their consciousness used to show that, however disabled, they were still soldiers—true soldiers. At such times, on many a pallet, the dying man used to raise himself by unwonted effort, and seem to yearn after the strife, as though he would answer once more the appeal of the bugles and drums.” [Illustration: Florence Nightingale at the Therapia Hospital. “I was sick, and ye visited me.”] Kinglake’s touching description of what womanly tenderness could do for our soldiers, and of the worship it called forth, is followed by these words:—