'As soon as I can, Tom. Take this note to the paymaster—I'll need all the money I can get.'
Tom saluted, took the note, but hurrying into his kitchen, in tremulous haste took a little packet from his knapsack and returned to place it in Cecil's hand.
'What is this?' asked the latter.
'Not much, sir. You'll excuse me, sir. I can't go away with you, but I may help you, at least.'
'But what is this—money?'
'Only a matter of ten pounds sent me by mother, to make me comfortable a bit. I am sorry it isn't more, sir; but if you'll take it to help you, for poor Tommy Atkins's sake, he'll be a proud man to-night. You've been a kind master to me, sir, and—and——'
But here the private soldier fairly broke down, and wept outright, 'bo-hooing' like a whipped urchin. Falconer was greatly affected.
'Thank you, my dear fellow—thank you: but this can't be,' said he: and he had no small difficulty in getting Atkins to keep the proffered money.
'Look here,' said Acharn to a group next morning in the mess-room, 'Falconer had only his pay, and this sentence is ruin and beggary to him; I have here a cheque for eight hundred at his service, and I know that you fellows, and ever so many more of the mess, will stump up. We must do something to start him, somehow or somewhere; but how or where is beyond me, for poor Cecil is a soldier, and nothing but a soldier.'
'But where the deuce is he?' asked Fotheringhame, who with Freeport came in with genuine anxiety expressed in their faces, to state that his rooms were empty; that he had left the fortress ere tattoo was beaten last night, and Atkins knew not where he was gone.