Just then there came up a gaunt man, in an undress uniform, who, seeing that they knelt over a wounded man, said,—
“Is he alive?”
“It’s all he is, sir,” replied one of the men; “and we’re wondering how to get a doctor to him.”
“Let me see,” said the stranger, approaching the body.
He knelt beside it and gently removed the coat from the wound.
“It looks as if he must be shot through the heart. Stay a bit, though, here’s a watch!” and he pulled me softly out of the pocket. As he did so I looked up at him. Surely I knew his face! Surely somewhere I had seen that troubled frightened face before! Then I remembered Seatown Gaol! Could this be Tom Drift here in India, and kneeling beside his old schoolfellow’s body?
It was indeed Tom Drift! But he neither recognised me nor the wounded man before him; indeed he was too busy examining the latter’s wound to look very closely at his face. As he removed the waistcoat he uttered an exclamation of astonishment.
“A most wonderful thing,” he said; “the bullet, which must have been a spent one, has struck his watch and turned aside. A most wonderful escape!”
And then he produced a box of instruments, with one of which he probed the wound, and after some trouble extracted the bullet. Then, bandaging up the place, he said,—
“He may do now, but he has lost a lot of blood. Let him lie here a bit, and presently, if he seems better, move him into the fort. I will see him again this evening.”