And once more a man riding on men’s shoulders looked up at a girl in the gaol verandah and saluted her with the blue glance of his eyes; and she with her hand raised to her forehead saluted him in return, as a soldier might salute a conqueror, her eyes full of pride. For only she and he knew how great was this victory in which lay their defeat.
“Do we think Victory great?”
“And so it is.”
“But now it seems to me when all is done, that Defeat is great, and Death and Dismay are great!”
Long before they came to fetch her, she had heard the news—the bitter, tragic news. It was on all men’s lips.
“His feet are gone. Nothing can save Marie Hammond’s feet—the fleetest feet in Africa!—gone!—done for! Nothing but amputation can save his life—and he won’t have it done!”
It was true. He refused to have it done. He lay and laughed in the doctors’ faces.
“Take my feet off? Leave me to spend the rest of my days on my back—or crawling about the earth like a maimed rat? Oh, no, my dear fellows!—No job for you to-day?—nothing doing! All right, I’ll be dead before morning if you say so. That’s not such bad luck either. I think a good long rest is indicated anyway. I’d like a rest, by Jove! Only I should like to be left alone now, if you don’t mind, with my pal Carr—and—Ah! yes, if Miss Heywood would stay too—? Leave us three alone, will you, until the end?”
Diane Heywood never left Salisbury. A grave kept her there, and you may find her there to this day, tending the sick and sad, helping all those whose burdens seem too heavy for their shoulders.