Phra shrank, but resigned himself directly to Mrs. Cameron's hands, while her husband turned to Harry.
"Oh, it's nothing," said the boy. "We shouldn't have come, only father and the King ordered us to show you our awful injuries."
"This is worse than you think, my dear Hal," said the doctor sternly. "Your arm is much swollen and inflamed. It would have been seriously bad if you had waited till to-morrow."
"Oh," cried Harry passionately; "what do I care? It's horrible; it's too hard to bear!"
"What, this?" said the doctor sharply.
"This?" cried Harry. "Pish! No!—NO! But you don't know. Poor old
Sree—poor old Sree, Mrs. Cameron: he's dead—he's dead!"
CHAPTER XXX
LIKE A BAD SHILLING
When they quitted the hospital room, Harry and Phra threw themselves down on one of the long bamboo seats in the hall where they had left their guns, and sat talking dejectedly in a low tone, leaving oft from time to time for a walk out into the still night air to listen whether there were any tokens of an approaching attack; but the place was perfectly still; the glow from the burning tree had nearly died out, and everything was calm and peaceful.
After a time the King and Mr. Kenyon returned from their rounds and stopped to speak to the boys for a few minutes, telling them that they had better get a good sleep while they could, and that they had been examining the windows at the other side of the palace, where they had been a good deal burned.