Cold and clammy fell the dew of night on his white and upturned face; his breathing was long, deep, and laboured, for the ball that so nearly finished him had deeply pierced his breast. He lay well-nigh lifeless. Would he ever be found--on the farthest skirts of the field as he was--till too late; till death had come first and claimed his own, ere the birds of the air, the wolves and wild dogs made a banquet of him? The moaning of the night-wind in the giant pines was heard at times; but it brought no sound, save the snarling voices of the beasts of prey, busy perhaps elsewhere. The flow from his wound had stopped; he must have perished otherwise; a species of bloody paste had sealed up the wound for a time; but Cecil's mind had become a chaos now, and he could remember nothing but the agony in his chest and the intensity of his thirst--an intensity to which the murmur of the cool runnel close by added tantalisation. Would a cooling draught ever moisten his lips again? Even the heavily falling dew had failed to do so. At last he became alive to all the dire realities of the situation--that he was lying in a lonely and untrodden spot, done nigh unto death; far from aid or succour, unable even to drive away the insects that, when morning came, would be battening in his blood, and when his sole watcher would be the greedy and expectant carrion crow. It would be so. He would die in solitude, and never find a grave until even that might be found when too late! Around him, at times, the solitude was awful. He must have slept or been senseless, for after a certain space he found the sun shining above the tree-tops, and some of the ravenous kites, that were croaking and wheeling above him in circles, had already begun to settle on the body of his horse, and dig their sharp beaks into it--something of life and volition in his face alone preventing them from assailing him, though they eyed him greedily, viciously, and askance from time to time. A cry of great horror escaped him. Then his wound burst forth afresh, and he became completely senseless and oblivious of all around him. After all--after all he had undergone, was he at last to find an unknown grave under the eternal shadow of this vast Servian forest! As the third day of the battle was drawing to a close, an enterprising Briton, well mounted and armed with holster-pistols at his saddle, was galloping with headlong speed along the road that led from the north towards the camp at Deligrad; but evening fell ere he reached the scene of operations, and only in time to see the last red flashes of the loud artillery pale out in the darkness on the lofty heights of Djunis. The heavy odour of gunpowder pervaded all the air, and every yard of the way now was encumbered by wounded men.