"Lie still," said a friendly voice, and the next moment the face of Marcel was bending over me. "You should thank your stars that your skull is so thick and hard, for that British bullet glanced off it and inflicted but a scalp-wound. As it is, you have nothing but good luck. The commander-in-chief himself has been to see you, and has called you a most gallant youth. Also, you have the best nurse in America, who, moreover, takes a special interest in your case." "But the army! The battle!" I said. "Disturb not your mighty mind about them," said Marcel. "We failed to destroy the enemy, having to leave that for a later day; but we won the battle, and the British army is retreating towards New York. I imitate it, and now retreat before your nurse." He went away, and then Mary Desmond stood beside me. But her face was no longer haughty and cold. "You here!" I cried. "How did this happen?" "When the American army followed the retreating British, we knew there would be a battle," she said. "So I came with other women to nurse the wounded, and one of them I have watched over a whole night." She smiled most divinely. "Then, Mary," I cried, with an energy that no wound could lessen, "will you not marry an American?" Her answer? It was not in words, but I saw in her eyes the light that shines for only one, and I asked no more. THE END End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of In Hostile Red, by Joseph Altsheler