such a target, for he flung out his arms as though in entreaty, and
then drew them hack till he stood like one of those wayside crosses
that we saw so often as we marched through France. And he spoke. The
words sounded familiar, but all I remember was the beginning.
"If thou hadst known," and the ending, "but now they are hid from
thine eyes." And then he stooped and gathered me into his arms--me,
the biggest man in the regiment--and carried me as if I had been a
child.

I must have fainted again, for I woke to consciousness in a little
cave by a stream, and _The Comrade in White_ was washing my wounds
and binding them up. It seems foolish to say it, for I was in
terrible pain, but I was happier at that moment than ever I remember
to have been in all my life before. I can't explain it, but it
seemed as if all my days I had been waiting for this without knowing
it. As long as that hand touched me and those eyes pitied me, I did
not seem to care any more about sickness or health, about life or
death. And while he swiftly removed every trace of blood and mire I
felt as if my whole nature were being washed, as if all the grime and
soil of sin were going, and as if I were once more a little child.

I suppose I slept, for when I awoke this feeling was gone. I was a
man, and I wanted to know what I could do for my friend to help him
or to serve him. He was looking towards the stream, and his hands
were clasped in prayer; and then I saw that he too had been wounded.
I could see, as it were, a shot-wound in his hand, and as he prayed
a drop of blood gathered and fell to the ground. I cried out. I
could not help it, for that wound of his seemed to me a more awful
thing than any that bitter war had shown me. "You are wounded too,"
I said faintly. Perhaps he heard me, perhaps it was the look on my