C
The three hospital-ships slowly rounded the promontory. Their anchors fell with a sudden plunge. The buglessounded, the gangways opened, the ladders fell—the barges of the Turkish hospital-hulk below the Point of the Seraglio, hurried, with a host of other craft, to receive their load of wretchedness. No surf beat on the rotten planks and shifting stones of the landing-place, and yet the process of disembarkation was lengthy and slow.
Day waned, the sickly haze fell dead, and the atmosphere grew denser. A round, red sun, hanging over Constantinople, stared through the dark blue fog malevolently, like some ogre’s solitary eye. Presently by the light of flaming torches the endless procession of litters—carried by English and French sailors, Turkish gendarmerie, porters of the markets, and soldiers of the militia regiments of Artillery that had been recalled from Tripoli to man the batteries and garrison the forts of the Bosphorus—moved over the crazy planks of the landing-quay, and climbed the steep paved road that led to the great yellow stone Barrack Hospital, between the crowds of sightseers of all nations that walled them in on either side.
For men and women could not tear themselves away from the awful fascination of the spectacle, as scourged and thorn-crowned England staggered, bleeding, up her Hill of Calvary—even as it had been prophesied to Prince Gortschakoff by the Tsar, his master—who was so soon to lie a-dying on his sack of leather stuffed with hay.
There was one woman among the many who held to blackened hands that hung over the sides of litters, or staggered upwards, aiding some tottering cripple’s steps with the little strength they had.... You saw her as a lean, tanned, big-boned creature, with ropes of coarse black hair tumbling down over the tatters of a cavalryman’s cloak. Passionately she resisted some sailors who shouted at her—gesticulating and crying herrings on them.... All the litters were in use, they said. Her man was no worse off than hundreds! Let him bide by the roadside with the others, dead and living, who lay there waiting for bearers! What call had a common soger to be treated any better than the rest?
What call? But that the blaggyardly rapscallions would not stop and listen to her, Moggy Geogehagan would have let them hear a thing or two.... As it was, with her Jems drawing every breath like a bucketful of stones, therewas no time to waste in arguing with the likes of them....
So she bowed herself, and hoisted the yellow parchment-covered skeleton that had been her man upon the shoulders that had carried many a brimming creel of herrings, and, leaning on a knotted staff she had, began to make the ascent.
A few steps, and the woman tottered. But that a black-eyed, white-haired and bearded man, in worn gray traveling clothes, broke through the hedge of spectators, and lent his wasted strength to eke out hers, she would have fallen with her precious load.
So together they carried Jems Geogehagan up the stone-paved road that led to England’s Calvary. As long as Moggy lived—and she did not die for many years—she remembered that stranger’s face.
The man was Hector Dunoisse. Nor did he ever forget how—as they reached the summit of the toilsome ascent, and the great archway of the Barrack Hospital gaped before them—he saw at last the woman he had come so far to find.
She stood upon a rising knoll of ground, upon the right of the entrance to the Hospital. As in his dream of her, she wore a plain black dress, and a black silk kerchief was tied over the frilled white cap. She was very pale; her eyes burned gray-blue fire beneath her leveled brows, and her lips were colorless and closely set.
Officials of various grades, in mufti and in uniform, were grouped behind her. Nurses in gray, or brown holland dresses and white caps gathered about her: the black habits and white guimpes of the Sisters of Mercy were actively conspicuous among the rest. And as her keen, observant eyes glanced hither and thither—and swift orders dropped from her lips—one nun after another would dart from her side and vanish; to return and speed forth again—diligent as little black-and-white humble-bees obeying the orders of their Queen.
It is upon record that all through the day, all through the night of fog-bleared moonlight and far into the morning that followed, Ada Merling stood while the sick and wounded were being carried into the Hospital.
Strong men grew weary, and went away in search of restand refreshment. Nurses collapsed, and were succeeded by other nurses. Relays of bearers were replaced by fresh relays. But the Lady-in-Chief remained at her post unflinchingly, and the white-haired man toiled on, and never stopped. For the strength and endurance that breathed from the still composure of Ada Merling seemed, despite his weakness, to communicate itself to Dunoisse. He was giddy, and faint, and breathless—his shoulders were galled, his hands were raw—his boots were in rags upon his blistered feet, when a rose-red dawn suffused the sky behind the wooded slopes of Bûlgurlû, and the last burden of wretchedness was carried in.
Then, and not until then, Ada Merling quitted her post, and followed. He who watched saw the tall, slight figure pass under the deep archway, saw the sentries present arms, saw the heavy gates shut. The last sightseers straggled away, and Dunoisse went down the hill-path, weary, and faint, and limping, yet happier and more at peace than he had been for many years. A tumbledown wooden eating-house, kept by a Greek named Demetrios, stood in those days near the landing-quay of Scutari. Dunoisse obtained a miserable room with a poor bed in it, slept for an hour or two, ate what they put before him, and returned to the Hospital.