“Halt a moment,” said the invalid, in a weak voice and with an apologetic smile. “I—I can’t get along quite as fast as I used to.”
His trembling legs and bowed back did not require the tongue or the large sunken eyes to confirm that obvious truth.
“Poor fellow!” said Miles—with difficulty, owing to the lump in his throat—“you ought to have had a stretcher. Here, sit down a bit on this stone. Have you been wounded?”
“Ay,” returned the man with a look of quiet resignation that seemed to have become habitual to him, “I have been wounded, but not by spear or bullet. It’s the climate that has done for me. I used to think that nothing under the sun could quell me, but the Lord has seen fit to bring down my pride in that matter. At the same time, it’s only fair to say that He has also raised me up, and given me greater blessings than He has taken away. They told me in Portsmouth that He would, and it has come true.”
“At the Institute?” asked Stevenson, eagerly.
“Ay—the Soldiers’ Institute,” answered the invalid.
“God bless you!” returned the marine, grasping his hand. “It was there I was brought to God myself. Cheer up, brother! You’ll soon be in hospital, where good food an’ physic an’ nursing will bring you round, may-hap, an’ make you as ship-shape as ever.”
“It may be so, if He wills it so,” returned the trooper softly; “but I have a little book called ‘Our Warfare,’ and a letter from the ‘Soldier’s Friend’ in my pocket, which has done me more good than all the hospitals and physic in Egypt can do. Come, let us go on. I’m better now.”
Rising and putting a long arm round the shoulders of each of his new friends, the trooper slowly brought up the rear of the touching procession which had already passed them on its way to Suez.
In the vessel which had brought those unfortunate men from Suakim, Miles and his comrades soon found themselves advancing down that region of sweltering heat called the Red Sea. The sight of the disabled men had naturally, at first, a depressing effect on the men; but the influence of robust health, youth, strong hope, and that light-hearted courage which makes the British soldier so formidable to his foes, soon restored to most of them their wonted free-and-easy enjoyment of the present and disregard for the future. Even the serving out of cholera-belts and pocket-filters failed to allay their exuberant spirits.