“Yes, I suppose so. Is the wound very big?”
“Quite big enough, sir. Might be bigger. Worst of it is, it’s so much bruisy-like. But you are getting better, sir, splendid.”
“Ah, and I have been so selfish, thinking only of myself. You must be longing for a wash, and there isn’t a drop of water left.”
“Oh, I don’t mind, sir. I shall crumble up some of them leaves and have a dry wipe, for I suppose my skin don’t look very cheerful.”
Archie held up his hand.
“What’s that, sir? Somebody coming?”
Archie bowed his head, and Peter Pegg went on tiptoe to his observatory, and drew himself up, holding back as much as possible, to see a Malay, whom he recognised as the previous night’s sentry, standing back at some little distance, shading his eyes with his hands as he looked upward, and then changing his position time after time as he seemed to be sweeping the roof with his eyes, before hurrying away.
“Why, I’d ’most forgotten that,” said Peter to himself. “He was looking up there to see if he could find where that there spear’s sticking in the roof, and,” he added, with a chuckle, “it ain’t sticking there a bit. I suppose he’s afraid of being hauled over the coals by his sergeant for losing his weapon. Sarve him right! The beast! Why, he might have sent it right through me.”
This thought seemed to suggest what he had gone through over-night, for after taking a final glance in the direction of the retiring sentry, he dropped softly down to where the broad patch of light lay upon the leaves, drew up the leg of his trouser, and examined an unpleasant-looking wound.
“Might have been worse,” he thought. “Only wants leaving alone. Just a wash and a dab of old Jollop’s sticking-plaister; and it won’t get neither, for it will heal up by itself and be something to show,” he chuckled—“PP’s first wound in the Malay Expedition!”