"I'm sure I am," I cried eagerly. "I haven't an ache or pain in my whole body now, and—"
"All right!" interrupted the colonel; "I'll take you. Now finish your copying, and don't fling the ink all over the place; it's wasteful."
It was not only wasteful, but it gave me extra work, the copy being so smeared and blotted that I had to write it again on a fresh sheet.
"Lima in a day or two!" I said softly to myself as my pen drove along the paper. The words sounded like sweetest music to me, and I hummed them to myself over and over again. I pictured the dear old home, the park, the pony I had ridden so often, the silvery pond, and the boats I had fashioned to sail on its waters.
But above and beyond all I saw my mother, with eyes aglint and face suffused with joy. The vision was so real that I stopped in my writing to view it more closely. And when the colonel presently gave me leave for the remainder of the day, I rushed off to find José, hardly knowing whether I ran or flew.
"What is it, Jack?" he exclaimed. "Has Captain Plaza promised to take you on another trip?"
He laughed at his own joke, and I laughed too, being in the humour to see fun in anything.
"You aren't far out, José," I replied, slapping him on the shoulder out of pure good humour. "I am going on a trip, but not with Plaza!"
"Then it must be with the colonel."
"Right this time. But where are we going, José? can you tell me that, eh? No, you'll never guess, so I will tell you. To Lima, my boy! what do you think of that?"