This done, I pass round to the bedside of the young soldier whom it will be remembered that I visited first. His dreams of glory are now at an end; for he sleeps the sleep that knows no waking. Doubtless his spirit is at peace. What would his mother feel did she know that her son had died this lonely death in a dreary place, with no hand save mine, that of a stranger, to wipe his brow! When he, too, has been consigned to the dead-house, I return as before to the sacristy, where I take another interval of rest. Between four and five o'clock the infirmarian awakes me for the third time, to say that there is a waggon at the gate with three wounded who are begging earnestly to be admitted. I have only two vacant beds; the third was occupied already by a bad case which had been lifted from the floor. I order two of the arrivals to be brought in. Upon examination I find that both have been badly frost-bitten in the feet. One, indeed, showed me half his foot almost black and simply rotting off. Their tale was a fearful one. They had been wounded,--one in the hip, and the other in the fleshy part of the thigh--in a skirmish about a fortnight before, near Beaugency. Overcome by loss of blood, each had dragged himself into a thicket--for the spot was a lonely one in the open country; and there they had remained in terrible frost and snow, during the whole night and part of the next morning. Some peasants discovered them, and they were removed to a cottage several miles distant. Here they had remained until now without surgical treatment; and hence their miserable condition. Their sufferings are not to be described; and I administer at once a hypodermic injection of morphia, which gives them speedy relief. Then I go to see the remaining occupant of the cart. By a gleam of the lantern I perceive that his leg is badly fractured; and the blood which oozes through the bandages, and trickles down the mutilated remains of his trousers, indicates that matters have not been improved by an eighteen miles' journey over rugged country roads. The sight of this famished and half-frozen unfortunate, whose agony is increased by the bitter cold of the winter night, and his pitiful supplication to be let in, determine me at once to make out a place for him. This is the work of a minute; for I know of a comparatively light-wounded fellow whom I can dislodge from his bed, although he is sound asleep and does not want to be stirred. The garments of the new-comer are, some stripped, some cut off him; and he is put into the bed which is still warm from its late occupant. A hot bowl of bouillon is swallowed down with avidity; to the fracture I adjust a temporary splint, for he is much too weak to undergo an operation. A sleeping draught is given, and I leave him to enjoy some hours' repose.