'For that I thank you, old fellow, though I am low enough—in that state, in fact, in which, we are told, we should forgive our enemies, and pray for those who despitefully use us.'
'These two rascals are past being forgiven now. I dare say long ere this their bodies have been swept into the White Umvoloski,' said Florian, who still felt somewhat savage about the whole episode.
'Well, I am going to the rear at last, but I hope we shall meet again. If not,' he added, with a palpable break in his voice, 'my ring—take and keep it in remembrance of me.' And as he spoke Hammersley drew from his finger a magnificent gipsy ring, in which there was a large and valuable opal, and forced it upon the acceptance of Florian.
'The opal is said to be a stone of ill-omen,' said Hammersley with a faint smile, 'but it never brought ill-fortune to me.'
Florian knew nothing of that, and, if he had, would probably not have cared about it, though reared in Devonshire, the land of the pixies and underground dwarfs and fairies.
'The only reason for the stone being thought unlucky,' said Hammersley, smiling, 'is that Mark Antony, Nadir Shah, and Potemkin, wearers of great opals, all came to grief.'
'Going home, I hear, Hammersley,' lisped a smart young aide-de-camp, cantering up to the ambulance waggon. 'Egad, I envy you—you'll see something better than Kaffir damsels there!'
Hammersley, in the midst of his acute pain, somewhat resented the other's jollity, and said:
'The poor Kaffir damsels are content with the handiwork of God, and don't paint their faces red and white, as our English women do in the Row and Regent Street, Villiers.'
'You'll soon be home—there is no such thing as distance now,' rejoined the young staff officer.