"Cholera!" said the surgeon, as he turned down the blanket, and knelt beside her; "cholera, and in the last stages, too. No pulse can be felt, the extremities cold and rigid, the face ghastly, the strength exhausted. I can be of no use here," he added to me, in a low voice. "A little time and all will be over." From my hunting flask he poured a little brandy between the lips of the sufferer, who proved to be a _soeur de charité_, by her white coif and black serge dress; and, on drawing nearer, imagine what were my sensations on recognising, through the twilight of the coming day, the pale and convulsed features of Sister Archange—of Mademoiselle de Chaverondier! An exclamation of sorrow and astonishment burst from me. All the memory of her kindness when I lay sick in the house of the Armenian merchant at Varna; all her singleness of heart; all her purity and self-devotion; all the memory of her story, and of her own happy home amid the mountains of Beaujolais, and how and why she had devoted herself to Heaven and acts of charity; all her simple belief in magic and miracles, with her child-like love and piety; her regard for her brother Claude, the gallant officer of Canrobert’s regiment, his wife, Cecile Montallé, and the cruel Lucrece, whose revenge wrought all their sorrow—all the memory of these things, I say, rushed upon me like a flood, as I stood, bewildered, by the side of the dying girl—dying like an outcast in that wild and savage place—and they deeply moved me. To leave her to die thus, untended and uncared for, was impossible. Yet what was to be done? How was I to succour her? Already the trumpets of the cavalry, and the ringing bugles of the infantry, were sounding the "rouse" and the "assembly," and the army was getting rapidly under arms—all the more rapidly that there were no tents to strike and no baggage to pack. Each man fell into the ranks on the ground where he had slept; the cavalry were mounting, the artillery were tracing their horses and limbering up, and long ere the Bay of Kalamita glittered in the rising sun, the whole British army was on the move towards the Alma. My friend the surgeon, finding that he could do no more—that he had, perhaps, patients enough elsewhere—suggested, ere he departed, that she might be put into one of the _kabitkas_ of the ambulance corps; but, as he assured me that she could not live above an hour, I despatched Stapylton to explain the matter to Colonel Beverley; and in a few minutes he returned with Pitblado, Lanty O’Regan, my groom, and four other lancers and our horses, and with permission for me "to look after my sick friend; but, at all risks, not to be ten minutes’ march behind the rear guard, as General Bosquet’s division was already advancing rapidly on our right flank, and the French sister might be more properly handed over to her own people."