"Faith, did we, Newton," said Studhome. "We concluded that you had been waylaid—cut off in the flower of your youth and day-dawn of ambition, as the novels have it—by some Bulgarian footpads or rascally Bashi Bazooks, for I presume you know that no one can go beyond the advanced posts with safety without a revolver."
"A rumour reached us of a British cavalry officer being conveyed seriously ill to the house of an Armenian gentleman," resumed Beverley. "We strongly suspected that you were the person, and the presumption became a certainty when yesterday this young lady brought your card to my tent at the cavalry camp."
"She is a good little saint," said I, with enthusiasm.
"And so, Norcliff, you have actually had cholera—that foul pest which is destroying our noble army piece-meal?"
"I am recovering, as you see; but pray don't linger here, colonel. There is danger by my side."
"Norcliff, the air we breathe is full of cholera," said Beverley, impatiently twisting his grizzled moustache; "our poor fellows are dying of it like sheep with the rot!"
"If the Emperor of Russia had planned the whole affair himself, he could not have taken better measures to weaken and decimate us than this useless camp at Varna."
"You are right, Studhome—to decimate us before the war begins," added Jocelyn.
"When do we take the field, colonel?"
"No one knows."