“Well, it seems that we are clear of these highly patriotic ‘burghers of this desert city,’” said he, with an attempt at his old manner, though the pained and fixed expression of his features belied the jesting words. “Do you think there is a medical practitioner within hail, Redgrave? though I fear me he would come late.”
“Good God!” said Jack, “you don’t say—you can’t think, old man, you are really hurt. I thought it was a mere scratch. Let us look and see; surely something can be done.”
“’Tis not ‘as deep as a draw-well, or as wide as a church-door,’ as Mercutio says, but I am really afraid that I shall see the old hall no more, not even the modified home of a club smoking-room. It’s hard—deuced hard, isn’t it, to die by the hand of miserable savages, in a place only to be vaguely guessed at as within certain parallels; just when we had hit the white too.”
“Don’t think of that, my dear old boy,” said Jack, gently, “you lie down and have a sleep, and perhaps we shall find that you have over-rated the damage.”
They made a fire; Jack and the boy Doorival kept watch, while the sore-fatigued and wounded man slept. No sound of fear or conflict smote upon their ears, as toil-worn and saddened, they passed the mournful hours. Towards evening Guy Waldron stirred, but moaned with fresh and increasing pain.
“Where am I?” he asked, as he looked around, with eyes which incipient delirium had begun to brighten. “Oh, here, on this miserable sand-hill—and dying—dying. Yes, I know that I am going fast. Do you know, Redgrave, that I dreamed I was back in the old place in Oxfordshire, and I saw my mother and the girls. I wish—I wish you could have met my people, but that’s over—as plain as I see you and Doorival. Don’t cry, you young scamp. Mr. Redgrave will look after you, won’t you? Well, I thought the governor looked quite gracious, and said I was just in time for the hunting season. Every one was so jolly glad to see me, and then I woke and felt as if another spear was going slap through me. Oh, how hard it is to die when a fellow is young and has all the world before him! I don’t want to whine over it; but it seems such awful bad luck, doesn’t it now?”
“I wish I had been hit instead,” groaned Jack. “I’m used to bad luck, and it seems only the order of nature with me. Try and sleep again, there’s a good fellow.”
“I shall never sleep again—except the long sleep,” answered Guy, mournfully. “I feel my head going, and I shall begin to rave before long. So we may as well have our last talk. When I’m gone send my watch and these things—they are not of any great value—to my agents in Sidney, and ask them to send them to my people. They know my address—and, Doorival, come here.”
The boy came, with deepest sorrow in every feature, and knelt down by his master’s side.
“Will you go home to my father, my house across the big sea, and tell them how I was struck with a spear in a fight, and all about me.”