All this time they waited anxiously for support, but none appeared. At length, as night fell, Colonel Adams, who had succeeded Eyre in the command, reluctantly decided to fall back.
The retreat was carried out slowly and in perfect order, without molestation from the enemy. Now at last the wounded were removed on stretchers as carefully and tenderly as was possible.
McKay's hurts had been seen to early in the day. He was placed as far as possible out of fire, and his strength maintained by such stimulants as were available.
While the excitement lasted his pluck and endurance held out. But there was a gradual falling-off of fire as the night advanced, and the pains of his wounds increased. He suffered terribly from the motion as he was borne back to camp, and when at last they reached the shelter of a hospital-tent in the Third Division camp he was in a very bad way: fits of wild delirium alternated with death-like insensibility.
But he was once more amongst his friends. Next morning Lord Raglan, notwithstanding his heavy cares and preoccupation, sent over to inquire after him.
Many of the headquarter-staff came too, and Colonel Blythe was constantly at his bedside.
On the second day the bullet was removed from the leg, and from that moment the symptoms became more favourable. Fever abated, and the wounds looked as though they would heal "at the first intention."
"He will do well enough now," said the doctor in charge of the case; "but he will want careful nursing--better, I fear, than he can get in camp."
"Why not send him on board a hospital ship? Could he bear the journey to Balaclava?"
"Undoubtedly. I was going to suggest it."
"There is the _Burlington Castle_, his own uncle's ship: she is now fitted up as a hospital, with nurses and every appliance. He will soon get well on board her."
There were other and still more potent aids to convalescence on board the _Burlington Castle_. A band of devoted female nurses tended the sick; and amongst them, demurely clad in a black dress, her now sad white face half hidden under an immense coif, was one who answered to the name of Miss Hidalgo.
It was Mariquita, placed there by the kindness of the military authorities, anxious to make all the return possible by helping in the good work. The relationship of the captain to Stanislas was remembered by Colonel Blythe, and the _Burlington Castle_ seemed the fittest place to receive the poor girl.