"Hullo, Lobb," said Hector, surprised at the apparition, the man being a trooper from his own late squadron, "what are you doing here, where's Murphy?"
"Beggy pardin, sir, Murphy's 'ad a haccident; 'orse come down with 'im this morning and broke 'is arm, and the Sergeant-Major sent me to do first servant to you in 'is absence."
"Where is he?" shouted Hector.
"'Oo, Murphy, sir? In 'orspital, sir; they took 'im there strite, compound fracture, I've 'eard, sir, the bone——" But Hector was already galloping away to the hospital, with a sudden desperate anxiety in his mind.
"Murphy, did you send that telegram?" he burst out, rushing up to the bed upon which the sufferer was lying.
"Beggy pardin, sir, I——"
"Did you send it?"
"No, sir; 'ere it is," and Murphy drew a crumpled sheet of paper from under the pillow. "Very sorry, sir." But once more Hector was gone, and five minutes later had reached the telegraph office, where, pushing aside other applicants for attention, he thrust the paper beneath the grating.
"When will this reach Duikerpoort?" he demanded.
"Couldn't say," answered the clerk, with the nonchalance that a manly Colonial independence seems to demand; "perhaps to-night, perhaps to-morrow morning."