“Did you talk of yourself?” she asks. “I think your memory plays you false then. If you had, I should,” with embarrassed playfulness, “know more about you than I do.”
“What do you know? What do you care to know?”
“I know that you have had a bullet through your left lung, and one that passed very close to your heart; and that, under these circumstances, it would be wiser not to gesticulate much,” she answers, with a pretty air of admonishment, and of recalling to both their minds her temporary function, which seems to him to sit upon her more exquisitely than any of her former expressions or gestures.
“Did I gesticulate?” he asks. “One gets rather tired of moving nothing but one’s head, and you must not be hard upon me to-day, for I am rather down on my luck. At least I was!”
“About Féodorovna?”
“Oh no! At least—of course yes. But that was not what I was alluding to. I have seen”—eyes and hands seeking among the newspapers with which the bed is strewn—“that one of my pals has been badly hit.”
In a moment she is beside him. “Let me help you. Which paper is it in?”
“In them all! It is official from Lord Roberts.” He has found the paragraph, and hands it to her, indicating it with a pale fore finger.
“On February 28th, General —— and his staff narrowly escaped being captured by a party of the enemy, and were only saved by the presence of mind and gallantry of Captain Greene of the —— Hussars. Captain Greene had been sent back by the General to order a company of infantry up to the kopje taken on the previous night by the Australian Bushmen. On his way he saw superior numbers of the enemy creeping up a donga, with the obvious intention of surprising General —— and his staff. With great presence of mind he galloped across ground in full view of the enemy, ordering up reinforcements. Having accomplished his object, Captain Greene recrossed the bullet-swept zone to inform the General of the position, in doing which he was severely wounded in the head and neck, but, though reeling in his saddle, regained the kopje, imparted his discovery, and thereby averted an otherwise inevitable disaster.”