“Did you recognise anybody?”
“It was too dark to see their faces—I didn’t even see the jolly old pea-shooter they used on me. But one of them was short and fat, which must have been the Sausage-meat Sultan, and I’m blowed if another hadn’t got something doocid like the height and shape of Uncle Hans!”
“How many were there?”
“Three or four—they stood in a group, so I can’t be quite certain.”
He was struggling to his feet, and he stood leaning against the wall of the hut. The shock must have been worse than he admitted, for his face was white and drawn.
“How do you feel now?” she asked.
“Fine,” he said. “I feel as if the top of my head’s breaking off, but otherwise I’m absolutely O.K. Let’s get along—the string’s where I dropped it, round in front. Lead on!”
Orace had faded away to fetch the rope, and in a moment he returned with a heavy coil of it slung over his shoulder.
“Don’t chew fink ya better go ’ome?” he asked. “Yer carn’t be yupter much after this.”
The honourable wound which Mr. Lomas-Coper had received in the Cause had immediately destroyed Orace’s animosity towards him. In another second Orace would call him “sir.”