Regal to the last, the sun sank away in orange and gold; and night,
burning, majestic, shimmering, spread over a cloudless sky. A full moon
floated up behind dense forest trees, and shed a glimmering radiance
everywhere. The heat did not seem to vary by a breath.
A great restlessness spread like a wave through the hospital tent. Men
waked from troubled slumber, crying aloud like children, piteously,
unreasoningly, for water.
The doctor went from one to another, restraining, soothing, reassuring.
His influence made itself felt, and quiet returned; but it was a quiet
that held no peace; it was the silent gripping of an agony that was
bound to overcome.
Again and again through the crawling hours the bitter protest broke out
afresh, like the crying of souls in torment. One or two became delirious
and had to be forcibly restrained from struggling forth in search of
that which alone could still their torture.
Durant was too fully occupied with these raving patients of his to spare
any attention for the bed in the far corner on which they had laid the
one man whose injuries were mortal. If he thought of the man at all, it
was to reflect that he was probably dead.
But at last a young officer entered the seething tent, and touched him
on the shoulder.
"Can you come outside a moment? You're wanted," he said.
Durant turned from a man who was lying exhausted and barely conscious,
took up his case, and followed him out.
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