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"He spoke so loud that I said: 'Hist! hist! don't make such a horrible noise as that, my man,' at the same time making a sign with both hands for him to be quiet. He then repeated his question, but not in so loud a tone. I told him this was the hut.
"'All right,' said he, jumping from his horse; and he was walking straight in when I pushed him back, asking what he meant and whom he wanted.
"'Miss Nightingale,' said he.
"'And pray who are you?'
"'Oh, only a soldier,' was the reply, 'but I must see her I have come a long way my name is Raglan she knows me very well.'
"Miss Nightingale overhearing him, called me in, saying: 'Oh! Mrs. Roberts, it is Lord Raglan. Pray tell him I have a very bad fever, and it will be dangerous for him to come near me.'
"'I have no fear of fever or anything else,' said Lord Raglan.
"And before I had time to turn round, in came his lordship. He took up a stool, sat down at the foot of the bed, and kindly asked Miss Nightingale how she was, expressing his sorrow at her illness, and praising her for the good she had done for the troops. He wished her a speedy recovery, and hoped she might be able to continue her charitable and invaluable exertions, so highly appreciated by everyone, as well as by himself. He then bade Miss Nightingale goodbye, and went away"
After twelve days Miss Nightingale was pronounced convalescent. The doctors now earnestly begged her to return to England, telling her that her health absolutely required a long rest, with entire freedom from care. But she shook her head resolutely. Her work was not yet over; she would not desert her post. Weak as she was, she insisted on being taken back to Scutari; she would come back by and by, she said, and finish the work in the Crimea itself. Sick or well, there was no resisting the Lady-in-Chief. The stretcher was brought again, and eight soldiers carried her down the mountainside and so down to the port of Balaklava. The Jura lay at the wharf; a tackle was rigged, and the stretcher hoisted on board, the patient lying motionless but undaunted the while; but this vessel proved unsuitable, and she had to be moved twice before she was finally established on a private yacht, the New London .
Before she sailed, Lord Raglan came to see her again. It was the last time they ever met, for a few weeks after the brave commander died, worn out by the struggles and privations of the war, and some thought broken-hearted by the disastrous repulse of the British troops at the Redan.
Rather more than a month after she had left for the Crimea, Miss Nightingale saw once more the towers and minarets of Constantinople flashing across the Black-Sea water, and, on the other side of the narrow Bosporus, the gaunt white walls which had come to seem almost homelike to her. She was glad to get back to her Scutari and her people. She knew she should get well here, and so she did.
The welcome she received was most touching. All the great people, commanders and high authorities, met her at the pier, and offered her their houses, their carriages, everything they had, to help her back to strength; but far dearer to her than this were the glances of weary eyes that brightened at her coming, the waving of feeble hands, the cheers of feeble voices, from the invalid soldiers who, like herself, were creeping back from death to life, and who felt, very likely, that their chance of full recovery was a far better one now that their angel had come back to dwell among them.
As strength returned, Miss Nightingale loved to walk in the great burying ground of which I have told you; to rest under the cypress trees, and watch the little birds, and pick wild flowers in that lovely, lonely place. There are strange stories about the birds of Scutari, by the way; the Turks believe that they are the souls of sinners, forced to flit and hover forever, without rest; but it is not likely that thoughts of this kind troubled Miss Nightingale, as she watched the pretty creatures taking their bath, or pecking at the crumbs she scattered.
Birds and flowers, green trees and soft, sweet air all these things ministered to her, and helped her on the upward road to health and strength; and before long she was able to take up again the work which she loved, and which was waiting for her hand.
CHAPTER XIV. THE CLOSE OF THE WAR
filled the sails of the boats, and made the waves ripple softly. On the other side of the gulf Sebastopol was visible, unchanged, with its unfinished church, its column, its quay, the boulevard which cut the hill with a green band, the elegant library building, its little lakes of azure blue, with their forests of masts, its picturesque aqueducts, and, above all that, clouds of a bluish tint, formed by powder smoke, lighted up from time to time by the red flame of the firing. It was the same proud and beautiful Sebastopol, with its festal air, surrounded on one side by the yellow smoke-crowned hills, on the other by the sea, deep blue in color and sparkling brilliantly in the sun. At the horizon, where the smoke of a steamer traced a black line, white, narrow clouds were rising, precursors of a wind. Along the whole line of the fortifications, along the heights, especially on the left side, spurted out suddenly, torn by a visible flash, although it was broad daylight, plumes of thick white smoke, which, assuming various forms, extended, rose, and colored the sky with sombre tints. These jets of smoke came out on all sides from the hills, from the hostile batteries, from the city and flew toward the sky. The noise of the explosions shook the air with a continuous roar. Toward noon these smoke puffs became rarer and rarer, and the vibrations of the air strata became less frequent.