"How was it?" asked the Major, "I only heard the row. The beggars must have got clean into camp."
"Right up to the artillery lines. You see it was so beastly misty and rainy, and they were dressed like the native vidette. So Hills, thinking them friends, let them pass his two guns, until they began charging the Carabineers; and then it was too late to stop 'em."
"Why?"
"Carabineers--didn't stand, somehow, except their officer. So Hills charged instead. By George! I'd have given a fiver to see him do it. You know what a little chap he is--a boy to look at. And then----"
"And then," interrupted the Doctor, who had been giving a glance at a ticklish bandage as he passed the bed round which the speakers were gathered, "I think I can tell you in his own words; for he was quite cool and collected when they brought him in--said it was from bleeding so much about the head----"
A ripple of mirth ran through the listeners, but Major Erlton did not smile this time; the laugh was too tender.
"He said he thought if he charged it would be a diversion, and give time to load up. So he rode--Yes! I should like to have seen it too!--slap at the front rank, cut down the first fellow, slashed the next over the face. Then the two following crashed into him, and down he went at such a pace that he only got a slice to his jacket and lay snug till the troop--a hundred and fifty or so--rode over him. Then--ha--ha! he got up and looked for his sword! Had just found it ten yards off, when three of them turned back for him. He dropped one from his horse, dodged the other, who had a lance, and finally gashed him over the head. Number three was on foot--the man he'd dropped, he thinks, at first--and they had a regular set to. Then Hills' cloak, soaked with rain, got round his throat and half choked him, and the brute managed to disarm him. So he had to go for him with his fists, and by punching merrily at his head managed all right till he tripped over his cloak and fell----"
"And then," put in another voice eagerly, "Tombs, his Major, who had been running from his tent through the thick of those charging devils on foot to see what was up that the Carabineers should be retiring, saw him lying on the ground, took a pot shot at thirty paces--and dropped his man!"
"By George, what luck!" commented someone; "he must have been blown!"
"Accustomed to turnips, I should say," remarked another, with a curiously even voice; the voice of one with a lump in his throat, and a slight difficulty in keeping steady.