“When? Now?”
“Try it,” he said, briefly.
I tried. Apart from a certain muscular weakness and a great fatigue, I found it quite possible to stand, even to move a few steps. Then I sat down again, and was glad to do so.
The doctor was looking at my legs rather grimly, and it suddenly flashed on me that I had dropped my blanket and he had noticed my hussar’s trousers.
“So,” he said, “you are a military prisoner? I understood from the provost marshal that you were a civilian.”
As he spoke Buckhurst appeared at the door, and then sauntered in, quietly greeting the surgeon, who looked around at the sound of his footsteps on the stone floor. There was no longer a vestige of doubt in my 113 mind that Buckhurst was a German agent, or at least that the Germans believed him to be in their pay. And doubtless he was in their pay, but to whom he was faithful nobody could know with any certainty.
“How is our patient, doctor?” he asked.
“Convalescent,” replied the doctor, shortly, as though not exactly relishing the easy familiarity of this pale-eyed gentleman in gray.
“Can he travel to-day?” inquired Buckhurst, without apparent interest.
“Before he travels,” said the officer, “it might be well to find out why he wears part of a hussar uniform.”