A silence as heavy as the last doom lay between the comrades; and every second as it passed was ticked off, it seemed, by Bethune's heart. Death they had faced together often—it was at the test of life that friendship had faltered.
Swiftly the glossy wings of the Pathan's beard fell under the snipping blades. And when he had exhausted what aid he could render, Bethune sat on the edge of the bed and watched the passing of Saif-u-din and the rising of Harry English from the dead.
There was one moment of outward triviality which yet, to the looker-on, was charged with a pain almost beyond bearing; it was when English, with the lather white upon his chin and cheek, turned quickly round upon him with hands outstretched for a towel. How often had not he seen his comrade thus, in the old days, when they had lived together, marched together, laughed and fought and suffered together, and he had been so happy!
The shaving accomplished, Captain English bent forward to the mirror and occupied himself with minute care in trimming and combing the flaunting, upturned moustache of the Pathan back to the old sober limits. There was not a quiver in the strong busy hands.
Vaguely Bethune, in the chaos of his thoughts, wondered how he could ever have believed this man dead. Such as he did not die, so long as they were wanted in life.
Then it was Harry English, indeed, that looked round. If Bethune's brain had had room for any doubt, the doubt must have died at that instant. Harry English, pallid, where for years the Eastern beard had grown so close—almost as with the pallor of the cheek upon which the earth has lain—worn, not so much by these same years as by a devouring impatience sternly held: but the old leader nevertheless, with such a light in his dark eyes as had been wont to kindle there when he called his men into the heart of the fight.
He spoke suddenly, abruptly; and the other found once more the exorbitant situation heightened rather than lowered by the very triviality of the words that marked it:
"I suppose," he said, "that you can lend me a coat. Where is it? In your bag?"
He could not wait for his companion to draw his wits together. In a couple of movements the whole contents of the portmanteau were on the floor, and his arm was already in the sleeve of a shooting-jacket.
This urgency of haste, under strong control though it was, awoke an answering fever in Bethune's veins. Oh, there was no need of words to make him understand! When he thought of her to whom the husband was hastening, his own heart beat to madness.