“No, not five hundred yards; it was just before we ran in.”
“Then double out and look for him. Go with him, another of you, and Corporal Adams.”
But just as this start was being made Grady appeared, shoving before him a man dressed in bernouse and cap, bearing the Mahdi’s colours of blue and white, whom he grasped by the scruff of the neck, and, when he showed unwillingness to advance, expedited his movements with a bump from his knee. What had happened was this. While skirmishing he had caught sight of a pair of human heels protruding from a bush which grew on the side of a rock, and he came to the conclusion that there probably were legs attached to those heels, and a body in continuation. So he made a détour, and crept up very softly from behind till he was within reach of those heels, which he promptly seized—or rather the ankles above them—and drew out a wriggling Arab with a rifle in his hand, which he could not get a chance of using against the person who was drawing him.
Flattering himself that he was entirely concealed, he thought he had got a beautiful place for a pot-shot when the skirmishers had passed, and the convoy came abreast of him. And so indeed he had, and with the barrel of his Remington in the natural rest formed by a fork in the boughs of a tree, he had a first-rate chance of bagging something. But he reckoned without his extremities; had he been a foot shorter, or the scrub a foot deeper, he would have remained unnoticed.
“Come out, you spalpeen, and drop that gun, will ye?” cried Grady, and both directions were obeyed, involuntarily enough; for, as he spoke, the butt of the rifle was brought with such a jerk against the stem of a mimosa, that the owner lost his grip of it, and the same jerk landed him clear of the bush.
“Be quiet, my jewel, till I pick up your shooting-iron,” said Grady, who wanted to take back the rifle as a prize and a trophy, but feared that his nimble captive would escape him while he reached for it.
So he knelt on the Arab’s back, he lying on his face, and taking a piece of twine out of his pocket, he tied his elbows together. Then he reached out and got the rifle, and slung it over his shoulder.
“And will ye plaze to get up?” he said. “You must excuse me if I am a thrifle rough, but it’s owing to the resistance ye make;” and as Grady, a very powerful man, was the stronger, his captive found himself on his feet and emerging into the open, without any volition of his own.
“Sure, and it’s in mighty good luck ye should estame yourself, to fall into the hands of a tender-hearted boy like meself, who lets the dirty life stop in your haythen carcase. By all the laws of your warfare, I am bound to put my bayonet into your stomach instead of making ye a prisoner, just as if ye were a respectable sodger, who gave and took quarter like a Christian. Get along wid ye! Ye are as bad to drive as a pig, and not a hundredth part the value of him, nor such good company either. Get on, I say, or they’ll be thinking you’ve took me, and not that I’ve took you. Ye’ve got to go before the captain, and tell him what he chooses to ask you, so where’s the use of struggling, making us both so uncomfortable this warm day? It’s proud ye should be to have spache with a real gentleman and a British officer, ye poor haythen vagabond!”
It may be observed that the last sentence was uttered in the possible, though not the certain and obvious hearing of the officer alluded to.