"Why, man, it might have been my right arm, and where should I have been then? As to the left arm, one can do without it very well. Then, again, it is lucky that the ball hit me below the elbow and not above it. O'Flaherty says they will be able to make a dacent job of it, and that after a bit they will be able to fit a wooden arm on, so that I can screw a fork into it. The worst of it at present is, that I have a terrible thirst on me, and nothing but water have they given me, a thing that I have not drunk for years. They have tied up the arteries, and they are going presently to touch up the loose ends with hot pitch to stop the bleeding altogether. It is not a pleasant job; they have done it to three or four of the men already. One of them stood it well, but the others cried a thousand murders. O'Flaherty has promised me a drink of whisky and water before they do it, and just at present I feel as if I would let them burn all my limbs at the same price. It is sorry I am, Terence, to hear that your father is hit so hard, but O'Flaherty says he will get through it all right. Well, he will get his majority, though I am mightily sorry that Harrison is killed; he was a good boy, though he was an Englishman. Ah, Terence, my heart's sore when I think what I said that evening after the fight at Rolica! I did not mean it altogether, but the words come home to me now. It is not for meself but for the poor boys that have gone. It was just thoughtlessness, but I would give me other arm not to have said those words." "I know that you did not mean it, O'Grady, and we were all feeling sorry that the regiment had not had a chance to be in the thick of it." "Here they are, coming this way with the pitch kettle. You had better get away, lad, before they begin." Terence was glad to follow the advice, and hurried out of the barn and walked three or four hundred yards away. He was very fond of O'Grady, who had always been very kind to him, and who was thoroughly warm-hearted and a good fellow, in spite of his eccentricities. In a quarter of an hour he returned. Just as he was entering, O'Flaherty came out of the door. "I must have a breath of fresh air, Terence," he said. "The heat is stifling in there, and though we are working in our shirt-sleeves we are just as damp as if we had been thrown into a pond." "Has O'Grady's arm been seared?"