“That’s so, Di. I fancy you can indorse her sentiments, Faunce?”
Again all eyes turned in the direction of the young explorer, and he roused himself with an evident effort.
“He was one of the best friends a man ever had,” he exclaimed with feeling. “I don’t know much about his religious beliefs. I’ll leave that to Dr. Price and to Miss Herford,” he added, inclining his head to Diane; “but he had courage enough to stand by anything that he believed.”
“That only brings us back again to the original proposition,” rejoined Judge Herford. “It’s an affirmative verdict—we’ve established his courage!”
“Haven’t we got an example of that right before us?” cried Mrs. Price, with a little bubbling sound of enthusiasm like the pleasant hum of a teakettle. “Here’s Mr. Faunce!”
“That’s right—we haven’t forgotten you, Faunce,” smiled their host. “You can’t escape your rôle of hero here.”
Faunce murmured a confused acknowledgment, blushing suddenly like a schoolboy. Dr. Gerry, who had been listening attentively, his keen eye studying the young explorer with professional curiosity, interposed now, giving the conversation a new and unexpected turn.
“Courage takes on strange streaks sometimes,” he remarked slowly, leaning back in his chair in an apparently reminiscent mood. “I remember a queer case out in the Philippines. A young private—the fellow came somewhere from the big grain-fields of the Northwest, and had never seen service before—went into action out there and got honorable mention three times. One day he carried a wounded comrade off under fire, and some of the women heard of it and wrote home, trying to get the Carnegie medal for him. About ten days after that the cholera broke out in a camp in Mindanao. I was down there with the regimental surgeon when Private Bruce was ordered on hospital duty. He begged to be excused, he turned as white as a sheet, and his teeth chattered. He wasn’t afraid of bullets, but he was afraid of cholera. Of course he didn’t get off. He had to go on duty, and he was sent out with a stretcher to bring in a dead comrade. A little Filipino, one of Uncle Sam’s new recruits, went with him. Presently the Filipino came back; he said he couldn’t do it alone, and the white man had run away. It was true, too. Bruce had bolted. He ran all the way to Manila, and they had to comb the place to find him for the court martial. He simply couldn’t face a quietly unpleasant death, and pestilence got on his nerves.”
Faunce, who had been listening with his eyes on his plate, looked up now, and his glance kindled with something akin to anger.
“Perhaps it wasn’t pure cowardice,” he exclaimed with feeling. “It’s easier to judge another man than to do the thing yourself. I——” He stopped short, aware of the silence around the table, and then ended lamely: “I’ve seen men do strange things under the stress of circumstance!”