Having seen that all is quiet again, I return to my fireside in the sacristy. When I am once more in my cosy chair, the details of what I have witnessed,--to such scenes,--alas, I am now accustomed,--pass from my thoughts, and are replaced by others of a different and more agreeable nature. The little bunch of holly which is set above the Tabernacle on the High Altar reminds me that it is Christmas morning; the glow of the burning wood brings before me the recollection of that bright fireside at home across the water; and as my eyelids gradually close, many a well-known and much loved face appears before me as if to cheer me in this solitude. I have slept thus for nearly two hours, when my pleasant dreams are put to flight for the second time by the infirmarian of the watch, who tells me in an excited manner that a young Bavarian soldier is bleeding profusely from the mouth, and cannot live if I delay many minutes. I despatch a messenger in haste to call Dr. May; and another second takes me to the bedside of the dying man. This patient, a young Bavarian, has been shot through the open mouth. Curiously enough, the ball had traversed the substance of the tongue from apex to base, and had buried itself in the back of the throat, from which position it has hitherto been impossible to get it removed. At once I compress the common artery of the neck with my thumbs, and while thus supporting him, kneeling up behind him in bed, I am able for the time being almost to stop the blood completely. But when I look into the basin that is placed beside me on a stool, I perceive to my horror that it is half full of what appears to be pure blood. I now ask the infirmarian why he had not made me aware of the fact, and called me sooner. He answers that some five minutes previously the sick man had sat up in bed, and had been, as he thought, very sick in his stomach. By the extremely faint light he had not perceived that what the sick man was ejecting was blood. Immediately upon discovering the true state of things, he had come for me. In a few minutes Dr. May arrives; but he and I are both too late. The man becomes ghastly pale, and writhes as if in a fit, then he is still for an instant, and sinks heavily and without life into my arms. A momentary feeling of sadness comes upon me, while I gaze on the remains of that unhappy young man, the victim of such an awful, such an unnatural death! But I must quickly repress my feelings; I have to see that these sleepy fellows remove the body, change the bedding, and clean the blood from the floor, so as to make way for another, who will at once occupy the place that has been thus left empty.