“Hold your tongue, fool!” growled the sergeant. “Fall in! Show some respect for your poor dead officer.—Beg pardon, gentlemen. They’ve found the lieutenant’s body, and—thank Heaven we can—we can—Ur-r-r!” he ended, with a growl and a tug at the top button of his khaki jacket.
The men shuffled into their places and stood fast, imitating the action of their officers, who gravely doffed their helmets and stepped down into the hollow, where, upon a patch of green growth a few feet above the rippling water foaming and swirling in miniature cascades among the rocks, poor Lennox lay stretched out upon his back in the full sunshine, which had dried up the blood from a long cut upon his forehead, where it had trickled down one side of his face.
He looked pale and ghastly, and there was a discoloration about his mouth and on one cheek where he seemed to have been battered by striking against the stones amongst which he had been driven in his rush through the horrible subterranean channel of the stream; but otherwise he looked as peaceful as if he were asleep.
The captain stopped short, gazing at him, while Dickenson dropped lightly down till he was beside his comrade, and sank gently upon one knee, to bend lower, take hold of the right hand that lay across his chest, and then—“like a girl!” as he afterwards said—he unconsciously let fall two great scalding tears upon his comrade’s cheek.
The effect was magical. Lennox’s eyes opened wildly, to stare blankly in the lieutenant’s face, and the latter sprang to his feet, flinging his helmet high over his head as he turned to the line of waiting men above him and roared out hoarsely:
“Hurrah! Cheer, boys, cheer!”
The shout that rang out was deafening for so small a detachment, and two more followed, louder still; while the next minute discipline was forgotten and the men came bounding down to group about the figure staring at them wildly as if not yet fully comprehending what it all meant, till the lookers-on began shaking hands with one another in their wild delight.
Then Dickenson saw the light of recognition dawn in his comrade’s face, a faint smile appear about his mouth and the corners of his eyes, which gradually closed again; but his lips parted, and as Dickenson bent lower he heard faintly:
“Not dead yet, old man, but,”—His voice sounded very faint after he had paused a few moments, and then continued: “It was very near.”