“It’s cruel y’are!” wept Eveleen. “When you know I would die for my friends!”
“Pardon me,” drily—“they die for you, you mean.”
“Ah, cruel, cruel! As if I’d ever, ever go where I wasn’t wanted again!”
“Come! now I have hopes of you. Does that mean that if I can find a safe place for you among the baggage to-morrow, you pledge your word to stay where you are put and do what you are bid?”
“Oh, and I’ll see the battle?” joyfully.
“Impossible to say, but I should think it unlikely. Will you do absolutely what you are told—whether you find yourself in a good place for seeing or not?”
“I will, I will! and I’ll be grateful to y’all my days.”
“May they be many!” Sir Harry’s tone was still dry. “If you don’t keep your word they won’t be—that’s all.”
“Ah, then, would y’have the heart to have me shot?”
“Quite unnecessary. The enemy will see to that if you go running about the country—or our own camp-followers, who are the choicest mob of rascals I ever saw. I know they’re capable of any enormity, because they treat their dumb beasts so abominably. I owe this to one of ’em”—he indicated his bandaged right hand.