“Ah! Bah! The old story, Doctor,” said the Major contemptuously.
“Yes, sir,” replied the Doctor tartly, as he fixed his eyes on the portly, middle-aged officer on the opposite side of the cloth. “You didn’t take those pills, then?”
“How do you know?”
“By the way you talk,” said the Doctor, chuckling, and screwing up one eye and glancing round at the rest.
“No, sir, I did not take the rubbish,” said the Major angrily, as he saw every one smiling. “Was it likely that I should take them at a time like this?”
“No, I suppose not,” said the Doctor coolly; “but I should. But, as I was going to say, Colonel, it’s wonderful what a deal the human skull can bear. Now, for instance, that boy Gedge: a great stone comes down many hundred feet, increasing in velocity with the earth’s attraction, strikes him on the head, and down he goes, insensible, with his skull crushed in, you would expect; but no: it is the old story of the strength of the arch and the difficulty in cracking an egg-shell from outside, though the beak of a tiny chicken can do it from within.”
“Then there’s no fracture?” said Bracy eagerly.
“Not so much as a faint crack, sir. Fellow was too thick-headed.”
The Colonel sprang to his feet the next minute, for one of the officers appeared to announce the appearance of three several bodies of men descending from the distant heights.
“How near?” asked the Colonel.