A half hour later he was in a hospital tent and a grim old army surgeon handling his arms. "Right arm flesh-wound—left elbow smashed. You will likely have to lose the arm."
"No, I won't," said Penhallow, "I'd as leave die."
"Don't talk nonsense. They all say that. See you again."
"You will get ten dollars," said John to a hospital orderly, "if you will find Captain Blake of General Wright's staff."
"I'll do it, sir."
Presently his arms having been dressed, he was made comfortable with morphia. At dusk next morning his friend Blake sat down beside his cot. "Are you badly hurt?" he said. A certain tenderness in the voice was like a revelation of some qualities unknown before.
"I do not know. For about the first time in my life I am suffering pain—I mean constant pain, with a devilish variety in it too. The same ball, I believe, went through some muscle in the right arm and smashed my left elbow. It's a queer experience. The surgeon-in-charge informed me that I would probably lose the arm. The younger surgeon says the ball will become what he calls encysted. They probed and couldn't find it. Isn't that Josiah I hear?"
"Yes, I will bring him in."
In a moment they came back. "My God! Master John, I been looking for you all night and this morning I found Hoodoo dead. Didn't I say he'd bring you bad luck. Oh, my!—are you hurt bad?"
"Less noise there," said an assistant surgeon, "or get out of this."