I looked up at him apologetically.
"Get me aboard the 'B.A.'; I shall be all right soon:" but the effort of speaking forced more blood into my mouth, and I had to stop.
With a frightened expression on his face he bade me stop talking and lie still.
"I'll have you carried down," he said; "wait till we can get a stretcher."
By this time there was a whole crowd of people round me, though I seemed hardly to notice them; someone put my topee over my eyes, to shield them from the slanting sun.
Presently, as if in a dream, I heard Mr. Fisher's voice.
"He's shot through the lung—the right side, thank God!" and someone touched my wrist very gently; and although I could not see her, on account of the topee over my face, I knew it was Miss Borsen's hand. My mouth filled with blood again, and everything became quite dark and peaceful.
I opened my eyes, feeling most horribly weak, and not knowing what had happened or where I was.
Opposite me were two parallel streaks of white light, and these seemed to hypnotize me. I could not move my eyes from them for a long time; but gradually my brain pulled itself together, and my sense of surroundings came back. I was in a square room with shutter-closed windows all round it. Deep shadows on the whitewashed walls seemed to come from a lamp behind me, and I was lying on a little trestle-bed. Presently I realized that those two streaks of light were made by the moonlight forcing its way in through cracks in one of the shutters, and just below them I saw something white resting on a chest of drawers, and recognized my own topee.
I noticed that I could hardly breathe; something seemed to be squeezing my chest, and I put up one hand—very shakily—to find out what it was. As I did this there was a rustle behind my shoulder, and a very small white hand took hold of mine and put it back where it had lain, and Miss Borsen's voice, sounding ever so far away, told me to lie absolutely still and not attempt to speak.