The gunner will have to take better aim next time!" Then he would shudder all over, and cry out in piteous tones, "Take it away, take it away--the blood is all over my face; and his body, oh, it is pressing me down into that yawning open grave! Will no one save me?
It is terrible, terrible to be buried alive, and the pale stars twinkling down on my agony!" Presently, however, the cold applications to his head had their effect, and he sank down into a torpid sleep, only to start up again in the ravings of delirium a few moments afterwards.
Fritz continued in this state for hours, with intervals of quiet, during which his nurse, by the doctor's orders, administered beef tea and other nourishment which sustained the struggle going on in his sinking frame; until, at last, the ball was extracted, after an operation which was so prolonged that the girl, who felt almost as if she were undergoing it herself, thought it would never end.
Then came the worst stage for the sufferer.

Fever supervened; and, although the wound began to heal up, his physical condition grew weaker every day under the tearing strain his constitution was subjected to.
Even the doctor gave him up; but the girl, who had attended to him with the most unwearying assiduity had hopes to the last.
Fritz had been unconscious from the time that he first recognised the dog, on the evening after he was wounded and found himself in the villa, until the fever left him, when he was so weak that he was unable to lift a finger and seemed at the very gates of death.
Now, however, his senses returned to him, and a glad look came into his eyes on seeing, like as he did before and now remembered, the face of the beautiful girl bending over him again; but he noticed that she did not look so bright as when he first beheld her.
"Ah!" he exclaimed feebly, "it was not a dream! How long have I been ill ?" "More than a fortnight," said the girl promptly.
"Oh, my poor mother!" ejaculated Fritz with a sob, "she will have thought me dead, and broken her heart!" "Don't fear that," said she kindly.

"I wrote to her, telling her you were badly hurt, but that you were in good hands." "You! Why, how did you know her name, or where she lived ?" "I found the address in your pocket," answered the girl with a laugh.
"Don't you recollect putting a slip of paper there, telling any one, in case you were wounded or killed, to write and break the news gently to your mother, `madame Dort, Gulden Strasse, Lubeck'?
I never heard before of such a thoughtful son!" "Ah, I remember now," said Fritz; "and you wrote, then, to her ?" "Yes, last week, when we despaired of your recovery; but, I have written again since, telling her that the bullet has been removed from your wound, and that if you get over the fever you will recover all right." "Thank you, and thank God!" exclaimed Fritz fervently, and he shut his eyes and remained quiet for a minute or two, although his lips moved as if in prayer.
"And where is Gelert, my dog ?" he asked presently.
"`Fritz,' you mean," said the girl, smiling.
"No, that is my name, the dog's is Gelert." "That is what I want explained," said the other.
"But, please pardon my rudeness, Fraulein," interrupted Fritz, "may I ask to whom I am indebted for watching over me, and adding to it the thoughtful kindness of relieving my mother's misery ?" "My name is Madaleine Vogelstein," said the girl softly.

"Do you like it ?" "I do; it is a very pretty one," he replied.

"The surname is German, but the given name is French--Madaleine?
It sounds sweeter than would be thought possible in our guttural Teuton tongue!" "My mother was a Frenchwoman, and I take the name from her," explained the girl.