“Of course!”
“More shame for you, then, for thinking me such a cur. Leave you and these poor fellows here in the midst of the jungle, to be murdered by those cowardly pirates? Not I. Why, the men would mutiny if I proposed such a thing. No; we’ll wait a few hours, and then get on a few miles and rest again, the best way we can.”
“But you will only get the poor fellows killed if you stay,” said the doctor.
“Well, hadn’t we all better be killed like men doing our duty, than go off and live like cowards and curs?”
“Of course you had,” said the doctor, speaking huskily. “But I felt that it was my duty to leave you free.”
“Doctor,” said the major, laying his hand upon the other’s shoulder, “there’s nothing like trouble for making a man know what a deal of good there is in human nature. You’re a good fellow, doctor. Hang it, man, you’ve made me feel as soft as a girl!”
He turned away his face, that staunch, brave soldier, for a few moments, and then the weakness was past, and he turned sharply round to the doctor.
“Now,” he said, “you shall see what stuff our soldiers and sailors are made of. Come here.”
He led the doctor back to the rear, where the guard, sun-blackened, haggard fellows, with their clothes hanging in rags from the thorns, were on the watch, and this being out of earshot of the sick and wounded, who were all ranged side by side beneath a couple of shady spreading trees, he gave the order for the men to fall in, when, with the precision that they would have shown upon a parade ground, the soldiers fell in, making one line; the sailors another in the rear.
“Face inwards!” cried the major, and he turned first to the sailors. “My lads,” he said, “your officers being all down, the duty of commanding you has fallen upon me, and I thank you for the ready way in which you have obeyed my orders. You have been as willing and as trusty as my own boys here, and that is saying a great deal.”