"Did you get back at him at all?" inquired McLeod.
"That's jist what was hurtin' me. For while I was spittin' out me teeth, an' in no condishun to take aim, the onderhanded, tricherous Afghan was dodgin' away through the rocks. But me next in file in the Munsters, he was a Scotchman from Aberdeen got a squint of him as he bint double, goin' round the corner of a pricipice, an' be the blissin' of Hiven, took a chip off the stern works of him—a mortial good shot, for the target he hit was the only part in sight."
"But how did you know that he was hit?" asked McLeod. "Did you take him prisoner?"
"Divil a bit! A wounded Pathan can crawl loike a wounded snake. But eighteen months afterwards I was up in the hills, wan of an escort of the p'ace envoys. The very first day wan of the native policemen pointed out an ould black-face among the chiefs an' tould me that was the man that put the bullet through me two cheeks. An' be the powers, that ould haythen cud no more sit down than I cud shmile. The shot of me next in file had spoiled the joint in the middle of him. It was the furst rale comfort that had come to me since the day I was shot. I began to laugh whin I saw him shtandin' up shtiff as a ramrod whin the others sat; or lyin' on his back, shtraight as a yardstick whin the rest were reclinin'-loike on the divans. The more I thought of it, the more I laughed, an' the shmile of the Gormans began to come back to me little by little. But I'll niver have the shmile ag'in that I had in Sleeahtballymackcurraghalicky—sure as I'm livin', I'll niver shmile ag'in as I used to whin I left Sleeahtballymackcurraghalicky."
"How did you come to leave Sleeahtballymack-what-a-ghalicky?" inquired Sinclair.
"Shure, docther, an' it wasn't me own doin'. To the best of me ricolliction it was the doin' of Providence, wid a bit of help from the priests, an' me father, an' the government, an' the recruitin' sergeant thrown in."
"How did they all come to the help of Providence?" asked the doctor.
"Faix, but you're of an inquirin' turn of moind, docther; beggin' your pardon for makin' so bould as to tell you that same."
"It's all right, sergeant. Go on."
"Well, docther, to make a long story short, it began this way. Me father was an indepindint farmer, wid a bit of land right forninst the dure of the church at Sleeahtballymackcurraghalicky, an' a hundred pounds in a bank in Cork. He was gittin' on in years. Me mother was dead, an' I was the only choild. What does me father do but tips an' wills his land to the Church for masses, me to be a priest, an' the money to the college that was to educate me. You'll onderstand that the land an' the money were not to be paid over till me father was dead an' done wid thim, d'ye see? But I was to go to school at wanst to be trained for a priest, d'ye onderstand?"