“It very well might,” said Strachan; “for there are all sorts of chances going when good men are really wanted. If not, you must go back into the old Militia Battalion of the Blankshire, as I mean to do when I am shelved; and then we shall get a chance of airing our medals, if they give us any, for one month in the year at any rate.”
“And what are your wounds, Kavanagh?” asked Harry presently.
“Sword cuts; one in the body is troublesome, but is getting better since I got away from camel back, though sometimes I feel down-hearted, progress is so slow.”
“Oh, you must not give way to that sort of feeling,” said Forsyth. “Why, I lay senseless for months and months from a cut on the head; how long I have no idea yet; I shall have to puzzle it out some day, but at present it is logarithms over again to think of it. I should certainly have died if it had not been for my dear old black nurse, Fatima, the loss of whom is the only thing I shall regret in leaving this part of the world. And if ever I come back, it will be to hunt her out and buy her.”
“Fatima! Come, now for a touch of romance, Harry!” cried Strachan, laughing.
“Black as your Sunday hat in London; blubber lips, hair like coarse wool; feet like canoes, and the best heart in the world, and—there she is!”
It was true enough; Fatima was searching about, looking for Harry Forsyth, just like a dear, faithful old dog. Ever since the episode of the letter she had thought he wanted to go to his own people, and sought how to aid him; after the fight at Kirbekan she lost him, and made her way down to Korti, as the best place, so far as she could learn, to gain tidings of any Englishman. The delight she expressed on thus unexpectedly seeing him again was touching to a degree.
“You will have some one else to nurse now, Fatima,” said Harry in Arabic, pointing to Kavanagh.
“Your brother is my master; I will cure him!” she said, nodding cheerfully to Kavanagh, and showing her white teeth.
“I am afraid Fatima would want to be nurse and doctor all in one, as she was with me,” said Harry, “and that would hardly agree with discipline. But you might do worse than that, I can tell you. Meantime, what am I to do with her, I wonder? Part from her willingly I never will. I tell you, Kavanagh, you would never have had a chance of your money, if I had not fallen into her hands, after I fell for dead in the wilderness; for I should never have pulled through but for her. How astonished my dear old mother and sister will be when I bring them a black servant! But she will soon learn their ways.”