“Not one of you?” went on the stranger, recovering himself a little. “Anstruther!”
“I do! I do!” cried Fitz, with a mighty shout. “You fellows, are you blind? It’s the Major!”
“The Major? Impossible!” was the cry, as Fitz wrung the new-comer’s hand with painful warmth. The idea seemed absurd, but gradually conviction grew upon the rest, and they stood round in awkward silence. Dick’s eyes sought their faces one by one.
“What is it?” he asked, turning anxiously back to Fitz. “Will no one tell me? Is—is—how is——?”
“As well as possible,” cried Fitz joyously. “Never given you up for an hour, Major. And the baba is a boy, the pride of the whole place.”
“Thank God!” said Dick fervently, and at the words the last remnants of the distrust with which the rest had regarded him melted away.
“Forgive us, Major. We’ve thought of you so long as dead that we couldn’t believe our eyes,” said Woodworth. “Have you been a prisoner all this time, after all?”
“North, my dear fellow!” Colonel Graham broke into the group and seized Dick’s hand. “Thank God you’re alive! This will be new life to Mrs North. But look here, we mustn’t let her see you like this. The fright would undo any good she might get.”
“I suppose I am rather a scarecrow,” said Dick slowly. He spoke with a curious hesitation, as though the words he wished to use would not come to his lips. “But I have been at death’s door until very lately, and now I have had no food for three days.”
“Woodworth,” said Colonel Graham, “post a sentry before the door of the ladies’ courtyard, and don’t let any one go in to carry the news. Happily they are none of them on the walls this evening. Now, North, for your wife’s sake, to save her an awful shock, you’ll come to my quarters and have a bath and a shave and something to eat, and get into some of my clothes. You’ll be a different man then. Can you walk?”