Herbert arose. ‘Art thou ready?’ he said.
‘To-morrow morning, Sahib; ere the dawn breaks—there is a moon—we will set out. In four days, if we travel fast, we shall be at the city.’
‘Have you seen the poor fellow who has been just brought into camp upon a cot, Dalton?’ said an officer of the staff, who lounged into Philip’s tent, about noon, some days after the above. ‘It seems he was confined in a hill-fort, and the garrison have brought him in. Poor fellow! he is in a high fever; for they rested by the way in the jungles, and there he took it. But —— is looking after him; they have taken him into the hospital.’
‘Some native, I suppose,’ said Philip, looking up; he was writing to his wife.
‘No—an Englishman; it was supposed there were none left, but—’
‘Good heavens!’ cried Philip, seizing his cap, and rushing precipitately from the tent. ‘If it should be he!—merciful Providence!—if—’
He flew across the camp; the officer looked after him in wonder. ‘What can he mean?’ he said aloud. He saw Philip run at full speed to the hospital tent, and he followed him there more leisurely and looked in. Philip was kneeling beside the bed of the sufferer, whose hands were clasped in his; the tears were streaming down his cheeks, and he was striving to speak. The other’s eyes were upraised, while his lips moved as if in prayer, and a look of silent thankfulness, of joy, of perfect peace and happiness was upon his handsome features, which he could hardly have conceived expressible by any emotions. He looked for a few minutes, and then hurried away to hide his own. ‘It must be Captain Compton,’ he said, ‘so long missing; I will not disturb them.’
It was indeed. In that silent grasp of the hand,—in the long, earnest, loving embrace which had preceded it,—in the recognition at once of the friend, and even brother, of his early years, Herbert had already forgotten all his sufferings. He had caught a branch upon the shore he had so long floated past, and leaped upon it; and now secure, could even in that moment follow the frail raft which had so long borne his sad fortunes, and gradually lose sight of it in the visions which opened before him.
Not long did he remain on that humble pallet; removed to Philip’s tent, and in his company and that of Charles Hayward, he felt, as they told him of the events of the past, that it was like one of those blissful fancies which had cheated him so often. He fell asleep, and dreamed of joy and peace, vaguely and indefinitely, and awoke refreshed by rest, and the prescriptions of the surgeon who attended him; he gazed around, and his eyes met the happy faces and joyful looks of his friends,—then, then only, did he feel it all to be true.