The young lieutenant started and looked at him strangely for a few moments before he spoke with a curious catch in his voice.
“Is it all true?” he said.
The captain’s lips parted, but no words came; he only bowed his head slowly, and once more there was silence, till it was broken by Dickenson.
“Poor old Drew!” he said softly. “Well, I hope when my time comes I shall die in the same way.”
“What!” cried the captain, with a look of horror which brought a grim smile to the subaltern’s quivering lip.
“I did not mean that,” he said sadly; “by a bullet, I hope, but doing what poor old Drew was doing—saving another man’s life.”
He turned his head on one side, reached out his hand, and picked from the sun-dried growth close at hand a little dull-red, star-like flower whose petals were hard and horny, one of the so-called everlasting tribe, and taking off his helmet, carefully tucked it in the lining.
“Off the kopje in which he died,” said Dickenson, in reply to an inquiring look directed at him by the captain. “For his people at home if I live to get back. They’ll like to have it.”
Captain Roby said nothing aloud, but he thought, and his thoughts were something to this effect: “Who’d ever have thought it of this light-hearted, chaffing, joking fellow? Why, if they had been brothers he couldn’t have taken it more to heart. Ha! I never liked the poor lad, and I don’t think he liked me. There were times when I believe I hated him for—for—for—Well, why did I dislike him? Because other people liked him better than they did me, I suppose. Ah, well! like or not like, it’s all over now.”
He sat thinking for a few minutes longer, watching Dickenson furtively as he now kept turning himself a little this way and that way and changed his seat twice for a fresh piece of hot stone. Suddenly at his last change he caught the captain’s eye, and said quite cheerfully: