“How can I sleep in such an Inferno as this?”

“Try, you are so weak, you’ll soon drop off;” and, laying the cool tips of her fingers on his eyelids, she kept them shut till he yielded with a long sigh of mingled weariness and pleasure, and was asleep before he knew it.

When he woke it was late at night; but little of night’s blessed rest was known on board that boat laden with a freight of suffering.  Cries still came up from below, and moans of pain still sounded from the deck, where shadowy figures with lanterns went to and fro among the beds that in the darkness looked like graves.

Weak with pain and fever, the poor man gazed about him half bewildered, and, conscious only of one desire, feebly called “Christie!”

“Here I am;” and the dull light of a lantern showed him her face very worn arid tired, but full of friendliest compassion.

“What can I do for you?” she asked, as he clutched her gown, and peered up at her with mingled doubt and satisfaction in his haggard eyes.

“Just speak to me; let me touch you:  I thought it was a dream; thank God it isn’t.  How much longer will this last?” he added, falling back on the softest pillows she could find for him.

“We shall soon land now; I believe there is an officers’ hospital in the town, and you will be quite comfortable there.”

“I want to go to your hospital:  where is it?”

“I have none; and, unless the old hotel is ready, I shall stay on the wharf with the boys until it is.”

“Then I shall stay also.  Don’t send me away, Christie:  I shall not be a trouble long; surely David will let you help me die?” and poor Fletcher stretched his one hand imploringly to her in the first terror of the delirium that was coming on.

“I will not leave you:  I’ll take care of you, and no one can forbid it.  Drink this, Philip, and trust to Christie.”

He obeyed like a child, and soon fell again into a troubled sleep while she sat by him thinking about David.

The old hotel was ready; but by the time he got there Mr. Fletcher was past caring where he went, and for a week was too ill to know any thing, except that Christie nursed him.  Then he turned the corner and began to recover.  She wanted him to go into more comfortable quarters; but he would not stir as long as she remained; so she put him in a little room by himself, got a man to wait on him, and gave him as much of her care and time as she could spare from her many duties.  He was not an agreeable patient, I regret to say; he tried to bear his woes heroically, but did not succeed very well, not being used to any exertion of that sort; and, though in Christie’s presence he did his best, his man confided to her that the Colonel was “as fractious as a teething baby, and the domineeringest party he ever nussed.”