“Yet she has done us grievous hurt.  We seem able to make no headway against her, in spite of our best efforts.”

“Let us see what better efforts we can make then,” cried Wolfe, with eager eyes.  “Best! why, man, we have done nothing but procrastinate and blunder, till my ears tingle with shame as I read the story!  But we are awakening at last, and we have a man to look to who is no blunderer.  The tide will turn ere long, you will see; and when it does, may I be there to see and to bear my share!”

Julian looked at the gaunt, prostrate form of the soldier, and said gravely: 

“But you are surely in no fit state for military service?”

Wolfe threw back his head with a little gesture of impatience, and then smiled brightly.

“This carcass of mine has been a source of trouble and pain to me from my boyhood, and there come moments when I must needs give it a little rest.  But yet I have found that it can carry me through the necessary fatigues with a vigour I had scarcely expected of it.  It is being patched up again after a hard campaign; and now that the summer has closed, nothing can be set afoot till the spring comes.  By that time I shall be fit for service once more, you will see.  I am taking the waters of Bath with sedulous care.  They have done much for me as it is.  Soon I trust to be hale and sound once more.”

“Have you been wounded, sir?”

“Many times, but not seriously; only that everything tells when one is afflicted by such a rickety body as this,” and the young officer smiled his peculiarly brilliant smile, which made the chief charm of his pale, unusual face.  “I got both a wound and a severe strain in my last campaign, which has bothered me ever since, and still keeps me to my couch the greater part of the day.  But rheumatism is my chronic foe; it follows me wherever I go, lying in wait to pounce upon me, and hold me a cripple in its red-hot iron hand.  That is the trouble of my life on the march.  It is so often all but impossible to get through the day’s work, and yet it is wonderful how the foe can be held at bay when some task has to be done whether or not.

“But a truce to such talk!  A soldier has other things to think of than aching joints and weary bones.  A man can but once die for his country, and that is all I ask to do.  That mine will not he a long life I feel a certain assurance.  All I ask is the power to serve my country as long as I am able, and to die for her, sword in hand, when the hour has come.”

The eyes kindled and the smile flashed forth.  Julian and Humphrey looked into the face of the man whom they had heard described as one of the most promising and intrepid young officers of the English army, and felt a thrill of admiration run through them.  The frame was so frail and weak and helpless; but the indomitable spirit seemed as though it would be able to bear its master through any and every peril which duty might bid him face.