Ah, Hope!--I am doing badly here enough; But they are doing rarely well out there. [Presses HOPE'S hand.] Don't leave! my speech may flag with this fierce pain, But you can talk to me.--Are the French checked? HOPE My dear friend, they are borne back steadily. MOORE [his voice weakening] I hope England--will be satisfied-- I hope my native land--will do me justice!... I shall be blamed for sending Craufurd off Along the Orense road. But had I not, Bonaparte would have headed us that way.... HOPE O would that Soult had but accepted battle By Lugo town! We should have crushed him there. MOORE Yes... yes.--But it has never been my lot To owe much to good luck; nor was it then. Good fortune has been mine, but [bitterly] mostly so By the exhaustion of all shapes of bad!... Well, this does not become a dying man; And others have been chastened more than I By Him who holds us in His hollowed hand!... I grieve for Zaragoza, if, as said, The siege goes sorely with her, which it must. I heard when at Dahagun that late day That she was holding out heroically. But I must leave such now.--You'll see my friends As early as you can? Tell them the whole; Say to my mother.... [His voice fails.] Hope, Hope, I have so much to charge you with, But weakness clams my tongue!... If I must die Without a word with Stanhope, ask him, Hope, To--name me to his sister. You may know Of what there was between us?... Is Colonel Graham well, and all my aides? My will I have made--it is in Colborne's charge With other papers. HOPE He's now coming up. [Enter MAJOR COLBORNE, principal aide-de-camp.] MOORE Are the French beaten, Colborne, or repulsed? Alas! you see what they have done too me! COLBORNE I do, Sir John: I am more than sad thereat! In brief time now the surgeon will be here. The French retreat--pushed from Elvina far. MOORE That's good! Is Paget anywhere about? COLBORNE He's at the front, Sir John. MOORE Remembrance to him! [Enter two surgeons.] Ah, doctors,--you can scarcely mend up me.-- And yet I feel so tough--I have feverish fears My dying will waste a long and tedious while; But not too long, I hope! SURGEONS [after a hasty examination] You must be borne In to your lodgings instantly, Sir John. Please strive to stand the motion--if you can; They will keep step, and bear you steadily. MOORE Anything.... Surely fainter ebbs that fire? COLBORNE Yes: we must be advancing everywhere: Colbert their General, too, they have lost, I learn. [They lift him by stretching their sashes under the blanket, and begin moving off. A light waggon enters.] MOORE Who's in that waggon? HARDINGE Colonel Wynch, Sir John. He's wounded, but he urges you to take it. MOORE