'Not particularly; I was rather knocked about by the Zulus, you know, and my leg gives me a good deal of trouble. I am pretty heavily handicapped—we are both in the same boat, are we not?—but we may as well make a fight for it.'
'Someone told me,' returned Kester, in a tone of great awe, 'that you have the Victoria Cross, Captain Burnett.'
Michael nodded; he never cared to be questioned on the subject.
'Will you let Mollie and me see it one day?' half whispered the boy. 'I hope you don't mind my asking you, but I have always so wanted to see it. I am afraid you won't tell us all about it, but I should dearly love to hear.'
No one had ever induced Michael to tell that story; the merest allusion to his gallantry always froze him up in a moment—even Dr. Ross, who was his nearest confidant, had never heard the recital from his own lips. But for once Michael let himself be persuaded; Kester's boyish eagerness prevailed, and, to his own surprise, Michael found himself giving the terrible details in a cool, business-like manner.
No wonder Kester forgot the time as he listened; the lad's sensitive frame thrilled with passionate envy at the narrative. At last he had met a hero face to face. What were those old Greek fellows—Ajax, or Hector or any of those gaudy warriors—compared with this quiet English soldier?
'Oh, if I could only be you!' he sighed, as Michael ended his recital; 'if I could look back on a deed like that! How many lives did you save, Captain Burnett?—you told me, but I have forgotten. I think you are the happiest man I know.'
Kester in his boyish reticence could not speak out his inmost thought, or he would have added: 'And the greatest and the grandest man I have ever seen.'
A dim, inscrutable smile flitted over Captain Burnett's features.
'My dear fellow, happiness is a purely relative term. I am not a great believer in happiness. A soldier without his work is hardly to be envied.'