"Look! look! Wild flowers arch the mountains! See the graves, Karl! The clouds drop wreaths!"
There is another quiet lapse, then the patient tosses feverishly. The weeping nun says:
"'I was ever a fighter, so one fight more, The best and the last!'"
His view seems dazzled by the lights, and the good priest suggests that his eyes be shaded.
"'I would hate that death bandaged my eyes and forbore and bade me creep past!'"
For a while Oswald seems quietly sleeping, then in confused accents mutters, and starting up, calls out:
"'Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set And blew; Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came.'"
These quotations fall upon the ears of priest and Sister of Charity with awfully solemn accents. They feel in presence of double mystery of life and death.
There is now naught to break the impressive silence but ticking of a clock and distant rumble of the elevated trains. No word had been uttered by this patient giving any clew to his religious training. The friend at whose cot this stranger so faithfully watched was a professed believer. Too, those fixed glances at the crucifix and solemn utterances suggested belief in the "atoning merits." Priest and nun exchange inquiring looks, then intently gaze at that quiet sleeper.
Oswald stirs, opens his eyes, tosses feebly, and in low tones says:
"A squall! They reef the sails! A typhoon!"
Somewhere in pulsing zone, circling this vexed human state, there is commotion. Rock-posing Barjona, think not to question this outgoing! At sight of inverted spike-prints echoes not yet that morning crowing in old Jerusalem?
Faster than light, swifter than sweep of angelic herald, quicker than aught else than Infinite quickening at human prayer, speeds the mystery of motherhood.
Gently ministering to most intricate throbbings of that suspended spirit consciousness, as her own had dominated embryo pulsings pending expectant miracle of birth, each disordered beat is soothed to rest. Who may more than hint those voices, sounding not above the din of life--whisperings to That, not always checked by vesturing clay nor indexed by crude registers of flesh?
Oswald lay long in this still sleep. The fevered crisis past, he slowly returns to conscious memory. There seems no curiosity as to future plans. When there is but slight danger of relapse, the nun who had been present at critical stage asks his name, and suggests that he may desire his mail brought to the hospital. This seems proper. It soon arrives. There is only one letter, but this bears a suggestive postmark. Its contents electrify Oswald, who hardly can restrain his joy. His impulse is to confide the good news to that kind-hearted sister who stands smiling at this handsome patient. Oswald checks his feelings and remarks: