"Well," I said, rather sadly, for I had at one time been conceited enough to imagine that I'd been chosen for ability, "the Commander knows a cousin of mine, and she asked him to look after me."
Mr. Collins smiled somewhat sarcastically. "If I hadn't had an aunt who knew an admiral, who'd known Helston years ago, I shouldn't have been here either."
"He seems rather down on me now, though," I said. "Whenever I go near him he sends me away."
"Can't you guess why, you fool?" Mr. Collins asked, hammering down a big load of earth his men had brought him.
"No; I thought I'd done something wrong."
"Silly young ass! Why, he and the Captain are simply being potted at from those bushes beyond us, and he doesn't want you to be bowled over. He won't take cover either; he can't, I suppose, while the Captain struts about enjoying himself. It may be jolly plucky, and Hunter is as grand a man as ever lived, and I'd follow him, and we'd all follow him anywhere, but he's simply playing the fool."
"Oh!" was the only thing I could say.
We were interrupted by one of the Maxim gun's crew pointing down the slope of the hill just beyond the line of smoking bushes.
"Beg pardon, sir, but I think there's a heap of natives down among them there bushes."
"Go back and tell the Captain, Glover," Mr. Collins told me, stepping inside the redoubt and calling his men back to the Maxim.