The Curse of Carne's Hold Part 29

"I think my father is here, wounded. He came up in the waggons the day before yesterday, I believe."

"Oh yes, he is here, Miss Armstrong. I had him put in one of the officers' wards that is otherwise empty at present."

"How is he, doctor?"

"Well, I am sorry to say that just at present he is very ill. The wounds are not, I hope, likely to prove fatal, though undoubtedly they are very serious; but he is in a state of high fever--in fact, he is delirious, princ.i.p.ally, I think, owing to his anxiety about you, at least so I gathered from the officer who brought him in, for he was already delirious when he arrived here."

"I can go to him, I hope?"

"Certainly you can, Miss Armstrong. Your presence is likely to soothe him. The ward will be entirely at your disposal. I congratulate you most heartily upon getting out of the hands of the Kaffirs. Mr. Nolan told us of the gallant attempt which a sergeant of the Cape Mounted Rifles was going to make to rescue you; but I don't think that any one thought he had the shadow of a chance of success."

"He succeeded, doctor, as you see; but he was wounded to-day just as we were in sight of the town. They are bringing him here. Will you kindly let me know when he comes in and how he is?"

"I will let you know at once, Miss Armstrong; and now I will take you to your father."

One of the hospital orderlies was standing by the bedside of Mr.

Armstrong as his daughter and the surgeon entered. The patient was talking loudly.

"I tell you I will go. They have carried off Mary. I saw them do it and could not help her, but I will go now."

Mary walked to the bedside and bent down and kissed her father.

"I am here, father, by your side. I have got away from them, and here I am to nurse you."

The patient ceased talking and a quieter expression came over his face.

Mary took his hand in hers and quietly stroked it.

"That's right, Mary," he murmured; "are the bars of the cattle kraal up?

See that all the shutters are closed, we cannot be too careful, you know."

"I will see to it all, father," she said, cheerfully; "now try to go to sleep."

A few more words pa.s.sed from the wounded man's lips, and then he lay quiet with closed eyes.

"That is excellent, Miss Armstrong," the surgeon said; "the consciousness that you are with him has, you see, soothed him at once.

If he moves, get him to drink a little of this lemonade, and I will send you in some medicine for him shortly."

"How are the wounds, doctor?"

"Oh, I think the wounds will do," the surgeon replied; "so far as I can tell, the a.s.segai has just missed the top of the lung by a hair's breadth. Two inches lower and it would have been fatal. As for the wounds in the legs, I don't antic.i.p.ate much trouble with them. They have missed both bones and arteries and are really nothing but flesh wounds, and after the active, healthy life your father has been living, I do not think we need be uneasy about them."

In half an hour the surgeon looked in again.

"Sergeant Blunt has arrived," he said. "You can set your mind at ease about him; it is a nasty gash, but of no real importance whatever. I have drawn the edges together and sewn them up; he is quite in good spirits, and laughed and said that a wound in the back could scarcely be called an honourable scar. I can a.s.sure you that in ten days or so he will be about again."

"Would you mind telling him," Mary asked, "that I would come to see him at once, but my father is holding my hand so tight that I could not draw it away without rousing him?"

"I will tell him," the surgeon said. "Oh, here is the orderly with your medicine as well as your father's."

The orderly brought in a tray with a bowl of beef tea and a gla.s.s of wine. "You will take both these, if you please, Miss Armstrong, and I will have the other bed placed by the side of your father, so that you can lie down with him holding your hand. You are looking terribly pale and tired, and I do not want you on my hands too."

The tray was placed upon the table within Mary's reach, and the surgeon stood by and saw that she drank the wine and beef tea. He and the orderly then moved the other couch to the side of Mr. Armstrong's bed, and arranged it so that Mary could lie down with her hand still in her father's.

"Now," he said, "I recommend you to go off to sleep soon. I am happy to say that your father is sleeping naturally, and it may be hours before he wakes. When he does so, he will be sure to move and wake you, and the sight of you will, if he is sensible, as I expect he will be, go a long way towards his cure."

Captain Twentyman, when he returned in the afternoon from a reconnaissance that he had been making with a portion of the troop, called at once to see Ronald, but was told that he was sound asleep, and so left word that he would come again in the morning.

The news of Sergeant Blunt's desperate attempt to rescue three white women who had been carried off by the Kaffirs had, when reported by Lieutenant Nolan, been the subject of much talk in the camp. Every one admitted that it was a breach of discipline thus to leave the party of which he was in command when upon special service, but no one seriously blamed him for this. Admiration for the daring action and regret for the loss of so brave a soldier, for none thought that there was the slightest chance of ever seeing him again, overpowered all other feelings. Mr. Nolan stated that the sergeant had told him that one of the three women was the daughter of the wounded man he had brought in with him, and that he had known her and her father before, and it was generally agreed that there must have been something more than mere acquaintance in the case to induce the sergeant to undertake such a desperate enterprise. Great interest was therefore excited when, upon the return of Lieutenant Daniels' party, it became known that he had fallen in with Sergeant Blunt and a young lady, and that the sergeant was severely wounded. All sorts of questions were asked the lieutenant.

"Ten to one she's pretty, Daniels," a young subaltern said.

"She is pretty, Mellor," another broke in; "I caught a glimpse of her, and she is as pretty a girl as I have seen in the colony, though, of course, she is looking utterly worn out."

"He is a gentleman," another officer, who had just come up, said. "I have been talking to Nolan, and he tells me that Sergeant Blunt spoke of her as a lady, and said that her father had served in the army and fought as a young ensign at Waterloo."

"Mr. Armstrong is a gentleman," Lieutenant Daniels said. "He had a farm on the Kabousie River, that is where Blunt got to know him. He had the reputation of being a wealthy man. Blunt was in command of a party who came up and saved them when they were attacked by the Kaffirs on Christmas Day. So this is the second time he has rescued the young lady."

"I hope Mr. Armstrong isn't going to be a stern father, and spoil the whole romance of the business," young Mellor laughed. "One of your troopers, Daniels, however brave a fellow, can hardly be considered as a good match for an heiress."

"Blunt is as much a gentleman as I am," Lieutenant Daniels said, quietly. "I know nothing whatever of his history or what his real name is, for I expect that Blunt is only a _nom-de-guerre_, but I do know that he is a gentleman, and I am sure he has served as an officer. More than that I do not want to know, unless he chooses to tell me himself. I suppose he got into some sc.r.a.pe or other at home; but I wouldn't mind making a heavy bet that, whatever it was, it was nothing dishonourable."

"But how did he get her away from the Kaffirs? It seems almost an impossibility. I asked the head man of the Fingoes, who was with him,"

another said, "but he had already got three parts drunk, so I did not get much out of him; but as far as I could make out, they carried her off from Macomo's kraal in the heart of the Amatolas."

"Oh, come now, that seems altogether absurd," two or three of the officers standing round laughed, and Mellor said, "Orpheus going down to fetch Eurydice back from Hades would have had an easy task of it in comparison."

"I am glad to see that you have not forgotten your cla.s.sical learning, Mellor," one of the older officers said, "but certainly, of the two, I would rather undertake the task of Orpheus, who was pretty decently treated after all, than go to Macomo's kraal to fetch back a lady-love.

Well, I suppose we shall hear about it to-morrow, but I can hardly believe this story to be true. The natives are such liars there's no believing what they say."

The next morning, after breakfast, Captain Twentyman and Lieutenant Daniels walked across to the hospital. They first saw the surgeon.

"Well, doctor, how is my sergeant?"

"On the high way to recovery," the surgeon said, cheerfully. "Of course, the wound will be a fortnight, perhaps three weeks, before it is healed up sufficiently for him to return to duty, but otherwise there is nothing the matter with him. A long night's rest has pulled him round completely. He is a little weak from loss of blood; but there is no harm in that. There is, I think, no fear whatever of fever or other complications. It is simply a question of the wound healing up."

"And the colonist--Armstrong his name is, I think, whose daughter was carried away--how is he going on?"

"Much better. His daughter's presence at once calmed his delirium, and this morning, when he woke after a good night's sleep, he was conscious, and will now, I think, do well. He is very weak, but that does not matter, and he is perfectly content, lying there holding his daughter's hand. He has asked no questions as to how she got back again, and, of course, I have told her not to allude to the subject, and to check him at once if he does so. The poor girl looks all the better for her night's rest. She was a wan-looking creature when she arrived yesterday morning, but is fifty per cent. better already, and with another day or two's rest, and the comfort of seeing her father going on well, she will soon get her colour and tone back again."

"I suppose we can go up and see Blunt, and hear about his adventures?"

"Oh, yes, talking will do him no harm. I will come with you, for I was too busy this morning, when I went my rounds, to have any conversation with him except as to his wound."

"My inquiries are partly personal and partly official," Captain Twentyman said. "Colonel Somerset asked me this morning to see Blunt, and gather any information as to the Kaffirs' positions that might be useful. I went yesterday evening to question the Fingo head man who went with him, but he and all his men were as drunk as pigs. I hear that when they first arrived they said they had carried the girl off from Macomo's kraal, but of course there must be some mistake; they never could have ventured into the heart of the Amatolas and come out alive."

The three officers proceeded together to the ward in which Ronald was lying.

"Well, sergeant, how do you feel yourself?" Captain Twentyman asked.