The wound is more than serious, Woodford, far.
Ride for a surgeon--one of those, perhaps, Who tend Sir David Baird? [Exit Captain Woodford.]
His blood throbs forth so fast, that I have dark fears He"ll drain to death ere anything can be done!
HARDINGE
I"ll try to staunch it--since no skill"s in call.
[He takes off his sash and endeavours to bind the wound with it.
MOORE smiles and shakes his head.]
There"s not much checking it! Then rent"s too gross.
A dozen lives could pa.s.s that thoroughfare!
[Enter a soldier with a blanket. They lift MOORE into it. During the operation the pommel of his sword, which he still wears, is accidentally thrust into the wound.]
I"ll loose the sword--it bruises you, Sir John.
[He begins to unbuckle it.]
MOORE
No. Let it be! One hurt more matters not.
I wish it to go off the field with me.
HARDINGE
I like the sound of that. It augurs well For your much-hoped recovery.
MOORE [looking sadly at his wound]
Hardinge, no: Nature is nonplussed there! My shoulder"s gone, And this left side laid open to my lungs.
There"s but a brief breath now for me, at most....
Could you--move me along--that I may glimpse Still how the battle"s going?
HARDINGE
Ay, Sir John-- A few yard higher up, where we can see.
[He is borne in the blanket a little way onward, and lifted so that he can view the valley and the action.]
MOORE [brightly]
They seem to be advancing. Yes, it is so!
[Enter SIR JOHN HOPE.]
Ah, Hope!--I am doing badly here enough; But they are doing rarely well out there. [Presses HOPE"S hand.]
Don"t leave! my speech may flag with this fierce pain, But you can talk to me.--Are the French checked?
HOPE
My dear friend, they are borne back steadily.
MOORE [his voice weakening]
I hope England--will be satisfied-- I hope my native land--will do me justice!...
I shall be blamed for sending Craufurd off Along the Orense road. But had I not, Bonaparte would have headed us that way....
HOPE
O would that Soult had but accepted battle By Lugo town! We should have crushed him there.
MOORE
Yes... yes.--But it has never been my lot To owe much to good luck; nor was it then.
Good fortune has been mine, but [bitterly] mostly so By the exhaustion of all shapes of bad!...
Well, this does not become a dying man; And others have been chastened more than I By Him who holds us in His hollowed hand!...
I grieve for Zaragoza, if, as said, The siege goes sorely with her, which it must.
I heard when at Dahagun that late day That she was holding out heroically.
But I must leave such now.--You"ll see my friends As early as you can? Tell them the whole; Say to my mother.... [His voice fails.]
Hope, Hope, I have so much to charge you with, But weakness clams my tongue!... If I must die Without a word with Stanhope, ask him, Hope, To--name me to his sister. You may know Of what there was between us?...
Is Colonel Graham well, and all my aides?
My will I have made--it is in Colborne"s charge With other papers.
HOPE
He"s now coming up.
[Enter MAJOR COLBORNE, princ.i.p.al aide-de-camp.]
MOORE
Are the French beaten, Colborne, or repulsed?
Alas! you see what they have done too me!