He lay muttering incoherently some little time; then
for a time he lay silent, and apparently sinking away
toward death. Presently his fingers began to pick
busily at the coverlet, and by that sign I knew that his
end was at hand with the first suggestion of the
death-rattle in his throat he started up slightly, and
seemed to listen: then he said:

"A bugle?...... It is the king! The drawbridge,
there! Man the battlements! -- turn out the --"

He was getting up his last "effect"; but he never
finished it.