"I heard him answer to the roll call before Venn's troop went off to
quarters," replied the other man. "He is safe and sound, my lad, and
Venn's own orderly."

Steadfast's heart bounded up. He longed still to know whether poor
Harry Lakin was in very bad case, but it was impossible to get in to
discover, and he was pushed out of the way by a party carrying in
another wounded man, whose moans and cries were fearful to listen to.
He thought it would be wisest to make the best of his way home to
Patience, and set her likewise at rest, for who could tell what she
might not have heard.

The moon was shining brightly enough to make his way plain, but the
scene around was all the sadder and more ghastly in that pallid
light, which showed out the dark forms of man and horse, and what was
worse the white faces turned up, and those dark pools in which once
or twice he had slipped as he saw or fancied he saw movements that
made him shudder, while a poor dog on the other side of the stream
howled piteously from time to time.

Presently, as he came near a hawthorn bush which cast a strangely
shaped shadow, he heard a sobbing--not like the panting moan of a
wounded man, but the worn out crying of a tired child. He thought
some village little one must have wandered there, and been hemmed in
by the fight, and he called out--

"Is anyone there?"

The sobbing ceased for a moment and he called again, "Who is it? I
won't hurt you," for something white seemed to be squeezing closer