"No," said I; "this is fever, but not debility."

"I don't want subtleties," rejoined he,
roughly. "I want to know am I dying? Draw
the curtain there, open the window full, and
have a look at me."

I did as he bade me, and returned to the
bedside. It was all I could do not to cry out with
astonishment; for, though terribly disfigured
by his wounds, his eyes actually covered by the
torn scalp that hung over them, I saw that it
was Harpar lay before me, his large reddish
beard now matted and clotted with blood.

"Well, what's the verdict?" cried he, sternly;
"don't keep me in suspense."

"I do not perceive any grave symptoms so
far——"

"No cant, my good friend, no cant! It's out
of place just now. Be honest, and say what is
it to be—live or die?"

"So far as I can judge, I say, live."

"Well, then, set about the repairs at once.
Ask for what you want—they'll bring it."

Deeming it better not to occasion any shock
whatever to a man in his state, I forbore
declaring who I was, and set about my office with
what skill I could.

With the aid of a Russian surgeon, who spoke
German well, I managed to dress the wounds
and bandage the fractured arm, during which
the patient never spoke once, nor, indeed,
seemed to be at all concerned in what was
going on.

"You can stay here, I hope," said he to me,
when all was finished. "At least, you'll see
me through the worst of it. I can afford to pay,
and pay well."

"I'll stay," said I, imitating his own laconic
way; and no more was said.

Now, though it was not my intention to pass
myself off for a physician, or derive any, even
the smallest advantage from the assumption of
such a character, I saw that, remote as the poor
sufferer was from his friends and country, and
totally destitute of even companionship, it
would have been cruel to desert him until he
was sufficiently recovered to be left with servants.

From his calm composure, and the self-control
he was able to exercise, I had formed a far too
favourable opinion of his case. When I saw him
first, the inflammatory symptoms had not yet set
in; so that, at my next visit, I found him in a
high fever, raving wildly. In his wanderings he
imagined himself ever directing some gigantic
enterprise, with hundreds of men at his command,
whose efforts he was cheering or chiding
alternately. The indomitable will of a most
resolute nature was displayed in all he said;
and though his bodily sufferings must have been
intense, he only alluded to them to show how
little power they had to arrest his activity. His
ever-recurring cry was, "It can be done, men!
It can be done! See that we do it!"

I own that, even though stretched there on a
sick-bed, and raving madly, this man's unquenchable
energy impressed me greatly; and I often
fancied to myself what must have been the
resources of such a bold spirit in sad contrast to
a nature pliant and yielding like mine. To the
violence of the first access, there soon succeeded
the far more dangerous state of low fever,
through which I never left him. Care and
incessant watching could alone save him, and I
devoted myself to the last with the resolve to
make this effort the first of a new and changed
existence.

Day and night in the sick-room, I lost appetite
and strength, while an unceasing care preyed
upon me and deprived me even of rest. The very
vacillations of the sick man's malady had affected
my nerves, rendering me over-anxious, so that
just as he had passed the great crisis of the
malady, I was stricken down with it myself.

My first day of convalescence after seven
weeks of fever found me sitting at a little
window that looked upon the sea, or rather the
harbour of Sebastopol, where two frigates and
some smaller vessels were at anchor. A group
of lighters and such unpicturesque craft occupied
another part of the scene, engaged as it
seemed in operations for raising other vessels.
It was in gazing for a long while at these, and
guessing their occupation, that I learned to
trace out the past, and why and how I had come
to be sitting there. Every morning the German
servant who tended me through my illness,
used to bring me the "Herr Baron's" compliments
to know how I was, and now he came to
say, that as the "Herr Baron" was able to walk
so far, he begged that he might be permitted to
come and pay me a visit. I was aware of the
Russian custom of giving titles to all who
served the government in positions of high trust,
and was therefore not astonished when the
announcement of the Herr Baron was followed
by the entrance of Harpar, who, sadly reduced,
and leaning on a crutch, made his way slowly to
where I sat. I attempted to rise to receive
him, but he cried out, half sternly,

"Sit still! we are neither of us in good trim
for ceremony."

He motioned to the servants to leave us alone;
then, laying his wasted hand in mine, for we
were each too weak to grasp the other, he said,

"I know all about it. It was you saved my
life, and risked your own to do it."

I muttered out some unmeaning words—I
know not well what—about duty and the like.

"I don't care a brass button for the motive.
You stood to me like a man." As he said this,
he looked hard at me, and shading the light
with his hand, peered into my face. "Haven't
we met before this? Is not your name Potts?"

"Yes, and you're Harpar."

He reddened, but so slightly, that but for the
previous paleness of his sickly cheek it would
not have been noticeable.

"I have often thought about you" said he,
musingly. "This is not the only service you
have done me; the first was at Lindau; mayhap
you have forgotten it. You lent me two hundred
florins, and, if I'm not much mistaken, when you
were far from being rich yourself."

He leaned his head on his hand, and seemed
to have fallen into a musing fit.