“He may not come back at all to-night—that’s why I’d so greatly have liked to stay on the field. If he finds there’s reason to hope Kamal-ud-din ain’t got very far, he’ll risk everything to catch him and end the war at one blow, if I know him. But if he’s taken to the desert, then it’s a case of rest for the troops before they can push on farther.”
But Sir Harry did return that evening, though only for an hour. The joyful shouts of the soldiers in the camp heralded his appearance, and he rode into the compound looking very old and bent. After a word or two to the Munshi salaaming respectfully at the door of the great tent, he came across at once to the Residency.
“And what d’ye think of this fellow, ma’am?” he demanded of Eveleen as Brian staggered to his feet and supported himself by one of the verandah pillars. “No thanks to him that you have got him back safe, I can tell you! I found him riding furiously all over the battlefield, bleeding like a pig, looking for some other village to give its name to the day, because he wouldn’t have it put on his tombstone that he was mortally wounded at the battle of Mussuck!”
“And did he find one?” asked Eveleen, rather absently. It might have been that the coarseness of the General’s language—so unheard-of when speaking to a lady—betrayed unusual turmoil in his mind, or—had she really caught him trying to signal to Brian unperceived?
“Not the ghost of one! To get him to go home quietly, I had to decree that it should be for ever called the battle of Qadirabad, and he promised me to die happy on that condition.”
“Sir Harry!” her voice was sharp. “Y’are not here to cut jokes about Brian. There’s something wrong with Ambrose. What’s happened him?”
“My dear Mrs Ambrose, what should make you imagine——?”
“Will you tell me what it is? Is he—is he——?”
“No, he ain’t,” said Sir Harry gruffly—“if you mean dead—nor even wounded. He had a slight sunstroke, but happily a surgeon was at hand to bleed him, and he is recovering his senses in due course.”
Eveleen put her hand to her head. “But the sun is not hot yet—to speak of,” she said in a puzzled voice.