But the days of Comberback were drawing to an end. An officer, supposed to be Captain Nathaniel Ogle, who sold out of that regiment toward the end of the same year that Coleridge left it, had, it is said, had his attention drawn toward this singular private, by finding the following sentence written on the walls of the stable where Comberback's horse equipage hung: "_Eheu! quam infortunii miserrimum est fuisse felicem!_" He showed him particular distinction. When Captain Ogle walked the streets, Coleridge walked behind him as his orderly; but when out of town, they walked abreast, to the great mystification of his comrades, who could not comprehend how a man out of the awkward squad could merit this honor. It was probably Ogle who wormed the secret out of Coleridge, and informed his friends where he was. It has, however, been said to have been through a young man, who had lately left Cambridge for the army, and, on his road through Reading to join his regiment, met Coleridge in the street, in his dragoon's dress, who was about to pass him; on which he said, "No, Coleridge, this will not do; we have been seeking you this six months. I must and will converse with you, and have no hesitation in declaring that I shall immediately inform your friends that I have found you." Whether owing to one or both of these causes, but as Comberback was sitting as usual at the foot of a bed, in the hospital, in the midst of one of his talks, and surrounded by his usual gaping auditors, the door suddenly opened, and in came two or three gentlemen, his friends, looking in vain some time for their man, amid the uniform dresses. At length they pitched on their man, and taking him by the arm, led him in silence out of the room. As the supposed _deserter_ passed the door, one of the astonished auditors uttered, with a sigh--"Poor Silas! I wish they may let him off with a cool five hundred!" Comberback was no more! but his memory was long and affectionately preserved among his hospital companions, one of whom he had volunteered to attend during a most malignant attack of small-pox, when all others deserted him, and had waited on him, and watched him for six weeks. To prevent contagion, the patient and his noble-hearted nurse, and eventual savior, were put into an out-house, where Coleridge continued all that time, night and day, administering medicine, guarding him from himself during violent delirium, and when again capable of listening, sitting by his bed, and reading to him. In the annals of humanity, that act must stand as one of the truest heroism.