"Yes--no--well, getting on, Gedge."

"Oh yus, sir; he's getting on. Pecks better now."

"I'm glad of it. You're better too, my lad."

"Me, sir. Oh, I'm getting a reg'lar impostor, sir. Ought to be back in the ranks, only I don't want to leave Mr Bracy, sir."

"Certainly not. Keep with him, and do all you can."

"Right, sir. Do a lot more if old Gee's wife wasn't there, sir."

"Humph!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Roberts, with his hand involuntarily busy rubbing his back. "By the way, Gedge, have you noticed anything particular about Mr Bracy when you've been with him?"

"No, sir. Oh yus, sir; I know what you mean."

"Ha!" cried Roberts. "You have noticed it?"

"Oh yus. You mean those fits o' the blue dumps as he has."

"Well--er--yes," said Roberts.

"Yus, sir; he has them bad. Gets a sort o' idee in his head as he'll never be all right again."

"Yes, yes; all weakness."

"Jest what I telled him, sir. 'Look ye here, sir,' I says; 'see how you bled that day 'fore I could stop it. Yer can't expect to be strong as you was till you gets filled up again.'"

"Of course not," a.s.sented Roberts.

"That's it, sir. And I says to him, I says, 'Look at me, sir. Just afore I got my blue pill--leastwise it warn't a blue pill, but a bit o'

iron--I was good for a five-and-twenty mile march on the level or a climb from eight hay-hem to eight pee-hem, while now four goes up and down the orspital ward and I'm used up.' He's getting on though, sir.

You can see it when you cheers him up."

"Yes; I noticed that," said Roberts.

"Specially if you talks about paying them roughs out for shooting at us that day as they did."

"Ha! cowardly in the extreme."

"Warn't it, sir? When we're up and at it, we lads, we're not very nice; but fire at a poor beggar carrying his wounded orficer--why, I wouldn't think one of ours 'd do such a thing--let alone believe it."

"Of course they would not, my lad," said Roberts. "There, I'm glad to hear about how well you attend to Mr Bracy."

He nodded, and went on to his quarters, wondering to himself over what had taken place at Bracy's bedside.

"It was very queer," he thought; "but it shows one thing--the poor fellow's a good deal off his head at times, or he wouldn't have hit out at me like that; and it shows, too, that all his ideas about being so weak are fancy. That crack on the back didn't come from a weak arm.

But it's all due to the wound, and it would be better not to say anything to him about it."

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

THE UNCOMFORTABLE SYMPTOMS.

Captain Roberts intended to go and sit with his friend for an hour or two next day, but he was called off on duty, and Drummond seized the opportunity to pay a visit. He was met at the door by Mrs Gee, who looked at him sourly as she pa.s.sed, for she had just been summoned by one of Doctor Morton's ambulance men to go and attend to one of the men who had been taken worse.

"How do, nurse?" said Drummond. "Just going in to see your patient."

"Then you must not stay long, sir. Ten minutes will be plenty of time.

Mr Bracy can't get well if he is so bothered with visitors."

"Oh, I won't bother him, nurse; only cheer him up a bit."

The woman frowned and hurried away, leaving the course open, and Drummond went straight on, thinking aloud.

"Glad my arm's not worse," he said, as he nursed it gently, "for I shouldn't like to be under her ladyship's thumb. She ought to be called to order. Talk about a hen that can crow; she's nothing to my lady here. I wonder Bracy stands it. Hullo! what's the matter?"

Loud voices came from the door of Bracy's room--those of the latter and Gedge; and upon hurrying in the young subaltern was astounded to find, as it seemed to him, Private Gedge with one knee upon the edge of the charpoy, bending over the patient, holding him down by the arm, which was pressed across his chest close up to the throat.

"Here! Hi! Hullo here!" cried Drummond. "What's the meaning of this, sir?"

The words acted like magic. Gedge slipped back, drawing Bracy's arm from where it lay, and he then carefully laid it down beside him.

"It's all right, sir, now, sir; ain't it, Mr Bracy?"

"Yes, yes," said the latter faintly, and looking up at his visitor in a weary, dazed way.

"This fellow has not been a.s.saulting you, has he?" cried Drummond.

"Me? 'Saulting him, sir?" cried Gedge. "Well, come now, I do like that!"

"Oh no; oh no," sighed Bracy.

"It was like this here," continued Gedge; "I was a-hanging about waiting to see if he wanted me to give him a drink or fetch him anything."

Bracy's lips moved, and an anxious expression came over his face; but he said nothing, only looked wildly from one to the other.

"Then all at once I hears him calling, and I went in. 'Here, Gedge, my lad,' he says--just like that, sir, all wild-like--'take this here arm away; it's trying to strangle me.'

"'What! yer own arm, sir?' I says, laughing. 'That won't do.'--'Yes, it will,' he says, just in that squeezy, buzzy way, sir; 'I can't bear it. Take it off, or it'll choke me!'"

"Well?" said Drummond anxiously; "did you?"

"Yes, sir, of course I did; for he spoke just as if it was so; and I got hold of it and tried to pull it away, but he wouldn't let me. He kep'

it tight down close to his throat, and looked quite bad in the face."

"You should have used force," said Drummond.

"I did, sir; lots o' force; but he'd got it crooked, and it was just as if the joint had gone fast, so that I was afraid that if I pulled too hard I might break something; and it was just while I was hanging fire like that you came, and he let it come then quite easy. Didn't you, sir?"