A Dash from Diamond City Part 61

Cattle were lowing and sheep bleating. There were shouts, too, such as he knew were uttered by Kaffir drivers, and there were the crackings of their great whips.

After a while he made out the trampling of horses and heard men talking, while in an eager confused way he listened for what they would say about those two wounded Boers, one of whom had nearly bled to death before that artery was stopped. These, he felt, must be the Boers he shot when he ought to have shot ponies.

And as he got to that point the trouble of thinking worried his brain so that he could think no more, and again all was blank.

At last came a morning when West woke up in a great room which seemed to be familiar. There were nurses moving about in their clean white-bordered dresses, and he knew that he was in some place fitted up as a hospital. Several of the occupants of the beds wore bandages suggestive of bad wounds, and to help his thoughts there came from time to time the dull heavy reports of cannon.

He did not recollect all that had preceded his coming yet; but he grasped the fact that he had been wounded and was now in hospital.

He lay for a few minutes with his brain growing clearer and clearer, and at last, seeing one of the nurses looking in his direction, he tried to raise one hand, but could not. The other proved more manageable, and in obedience to a sign the nurse came, laid a hand upon his forehead, and smiled down in his face.

"Your head's cooler!" she said. "You're better?"

"Yes," he replied: "have I been very bad?"

"Terribly! We thought once that you would not recover."

"And Ingleborough?"

"Ingleborough? Oh, you mean your companion who was brought in with you?"

West nodded: he could not speak.

"Well, I think he will get better now!"

"But his wound: is it so bad?"

"He nearly bled to death; but you must not talk much yet."

"Only a little!" said West eagerly. "Pray tell me, he will get better?"

"Oh yes: there's no doubt about it, I believe."

"Oh, thank goodness!" cried West fervently. "But what place is this?"

"This? Why, Kimberley, of course!"

"Ah!" cried West excitedly, and his hand went to his breast. "My jacket!"

"Your jacket?" said the nurse. "Oh, that was all cut and torn, and soaked with blood. I think it has been burnt."

"What!" cried West. "Oh, don't say that!"

"Hush, hus.h.!.+ What is this?" said a deep, stern voice. "Patient delirious, nurse?"

A quiet, grave-looking face was bent over West's pillow, and the poor fellow jumped at the idea that this must be the surgeon.

"No, sir; no, sir!" he whispered excitedly, catching at the new-comer's arm. "I am better: it is only that I am in trouble about my clothes."

"Clothes, eh?" said the doctor, smiling. "Oh, you will not want clothes for two or three weeks yet."

"Not to dress, sir," whispered West excitedly; "but I must have my jacket. It is important!"

"Why?" said the surgeon, laying his hand upon the young man's brow soothingly.

"I was bringing on a despatch from Mafeking when I was shot down, sir,"

whispered West excitedly.

"It was sewn up for safety in the breast."

"Indeed?" said the doctor, laying his fingers on the lad's pulse and looking keenly in his eyes.

"Yes, sir, indeed!" said West eagerly. "I know what I am saying, sir."

"Yes, you are cool now; but I'm afraid the jacket will have been burned with other garments of the kind. Of course, the contents of the pockets will have been preserved."

"Oh, they are nothing, sir," cried West piteously. "It is a letter sewn up in the breast that I want. It is so important!"

"Well, I'll see!" said the doctor gravely, and, signing to the nurse who had been in attendance, he left the ward, with West in a state of feverish anxiety.

At last, to West's intense satisfaction, the horribly blood-stained garment was brought in, and his hand went out trembling to catch it by the breast, fully expecting to find the missive gone.

"Yes," he cried wildly, "it is here!"

"Hah!" cried the doctor, and, taking out his knife, he prepared to slit it up, but West checked him.

"No," he panted: "the Commandant. Send for him here!"

"My good lad, he is so busy, he would not come! Let me cut out the message and send it to him."

"No," said West firmly; "I will not part from it till he comes."

"But really--"

"Tell him a wounded messenger from Mafeking has a letter for him, and he will come."

West was right: the magic word Mafeking brought the Commandant to his bedside; and as soon as he came up he stopped short and made what little blood poor West had left flush to his face, for he cried:

"Hullo! Why, it is our illicit-diamond-dealer! I thought we were never to see you again!"

"It is not true!" cried West. "The man who denounced me lied!"

"Then you have been to Mafeking?"

"Yes, sir: Mr Ingleborough and I."

"And brought back a despatch?"