A pause, in which the cries of the wounded came through the smoke, and
then the dying man, feeling the approach of another convulsion, said:
"A cigarette, mon ami."

Blake Shorland put a cigarette between his lips and lighted it.

"And now a little wine," the fallen soldier added. The surgeon, who had
come again for a moment, nodded and said: "It may help."

Barre's native servant brought a bottle of champagne intended to be drunk
after the expected victory, but not in this fashion!

Shorland understood. This brave young soldier of a dispossessed family
wished to show no fear of pain, no lack of outward and physical courage
in the approaching and final shock. He must do something that was
conventional, natural, habitual, that would take his mind from the thing
itself. At heart he was right. The rest was a question of living like a
strong-nerved soldier to the last. The tobacco-smoke curled feebly from
his lips, and was swallowed up in the clouds of powder-smoke that circled
round them. With his head on his native servant's knee he watched
Shorland uncork the bottle and pour the wine into the surgeon's medicine-
glass. It was put in his fingers; he sipped it once and then drank it
all. "Again," he said.

Again it was filled. The cigarette was smoked nearly to the end.
Shorland must unburden his mind of one thought, and he said: "You took
what was meant for me, my friend."

"Ah, no, no! It was the fortune, we will say the good fortune. C'est