Powell had been a surgeon’s mate in his youth, and was serving under Collingwood at Trafalgar when his ship stood first into action, and, like a sovereign of the old days, led the van of the battle.  There was no shape of shattered and maimed humanity with which he had not been familiar, and my last hope died away when I saw him come forth, trembling all over, his rugged features convulsed with grief.

“I saw him born,” the old man sobbed out.  “I never thought to see him die—­and die so!”

Guy had received a mortal injury in the spine, though how long he might linger none could tell.

There broke from Lady Catharine’s white lips one terrible heart-broken cry—­“If God would only take me first!” Then her self-control returned, and she went into her son’s room, outwardly quite calm.

I have never tried to fancy what passed at the meeting of those two strong hearts, after the one had been brought suddenly, face to face, with an awful death, the other with a yet more awful sorrow.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

“Ah!  Sir Launcelot, there thou liest, that never wert matched of earthly hands.  Thou wert the fairest person, and the goodliest of any that rode in the press of knights; thou wert the truest to thy sworn brother of any that buckled on the spur; and thou wert the faithfullest of any that have loved paramours:  most courteous wert thou, and gentle of all that sat in hall among dames; and thou wert the sternest knight to thy mortal foe that ever laid spear in the rest.”

When Powell’s self-command gave way so completely after he saw the nature of Guy’s case, it was not because he knew it must end fatally, but because his skill told him what fearful agonies must precede the release.  All the surgeons who were called in could do nothing but confirm these forebodings.  The colossal strength and vital energy of Livingstone’s frame and constitution yielded but slowly to a blow which would have crushed a weaker man instantly.  All the outworks were ruined and carried, but Death had still to fight hard before he won the citadel.  I can not go through the details; I will only say that, sometimes, none of us could endure to look upon sufferings which never drew a complaint or a moan from him.

Almost every pleasure has been discussed and dissected, but we know comparatively nothing of the physiology of pain.  There is no standard by which to measure it, even if the courage and endurance of any mortal man could enable him to analyze his own tortures philosophically.  Was it not always supposed that the guillotine is merciful, because quick in annihilation?  Look at Wiertz’s pictures at Brussels.  If his idea (shared too, now, by many clever surgeons) be true, you will see the amount of a long life’s suffering exceeded by what seems to us a minute’s agony.  But it is like the Eastern king’s gaining the experience of fifty years by dipping his head for a second in the magic water.  For a soul in torment there is no horologe.