The men forgot their thirst in the excitement of the incident, and as
soon as Lennox showed signs of recovering a little from the state of
exhaustion in which he lay, every one volunteered to be his bearer. But
before he had been carried far he made signs for the men to stop, and
upon being set down he took Dickenson's arm, and, leaning upon him
heavily, marched slowly with the men for the rest of the way towards the
colonel's quarters.
They were met, though, before they were half-way, their slow approach
being seen and taken for a sign that there was something wrong; and
colonel, major, doctor, and the other officers hurried to meet them and
hear briefly what had occurred.
"Why, Lennox, my lad," cried the doctor after a short examination, "you
ought to be dead. You must be a tough one. There, I'll see what I can
do for you."
He took the young officer in his charge from that moment, and his first
order was that his patient was to be left entirely alone, and, after
partaking of a little refreshment, he was to rest and sleep for as many
hours as he could.
"The poor fellow has had a terrible shock," he said to the colonel.
"Of course; but one naturally would like to know how he managed to
escape."
"Very naturally, my dear sir; but his eyes tell me that if his brain is
not allowed to recover its tone he'll have a bad attack of fever. A man
can't go through such an experience as that without being terribly
weakened. I want him to be led into thinking of everything else but his
escape. I dare say after a few hours he will be wanting to talk
excitedly about all he felt; but he mustn't. Not a question must be
asked."
As it happened, the patient did exactly what the doctor wished: he
slept, or, rather, sank into a state of stupor which lasted for many
hours, came to his senses again, partook of a little food, and then
dropped asleep once more; and this was repeated for days before he
thoroughly recovered, and then began of his own volition to speak of his
experience.
It was about a week after his mishap, in the evening, when Dickenson,
just returned from a skirmish in which the Boers had been driven back,
was seated beside his rough couch watching him intently.
"Don't sit staring at me like that, old fellow," said Lennox suddenly.
"You look as if you thought I was going to die."
"Not you! You look a lot better to-night."
"I am, I know."
"How?" asked Dickenson laconically.
"Because I've begun to worry about not being on duty and helping."
"Yes; that's a good sign," said Dickenson. "Capital. Feel stronger?"
"Yes. It's just as if my strength has begun to come back all at once.
Did you drive off the enemy to-day?"
"Famously. Gave them a regular licking."
"That's right. But tell me about Corporal May."
"Oh no, you're not to bother about that."
"Tell me about Corporal May," persisted Lennox.
"Doctor said you weren't to worry about such things."
"It isn't a worry now. I felt at first that if I thought much about
that business in the cave I should go off my head; but I'm quite cool
and comfortable now. Tell me--is he quite well again?"
"Not quite. He has had a touch of fever and been a bit loose in the
knob, just as if he had been frightened out of his wits."
"Of course," said Lennox quietly. "I was nearly the same. I did not
know at the time, but I do now. He is getting better, though?"
"Fast; only he's a bit of a humbug with it. I thought so, and the
doctor endorses my ideas. He likes being ill and nursed and petted with
the best food, so as to keep out of the hard work. I don't like the
fellow a bit. There, you've talked enough now, so I'll be gone."
"No; stop," said Lennox. "Tell me about the stores of corn we found in
that cave."
"Hang the cave! You're not to talk about it."
"Tell me about the grain," persisted Lennox.
"Oh, very well; we're going on eating it, for if it hadn't turned up as
it did we should have been obliged to surrender or cut our way through."
"But there's plenty yet?"
"Oh yes, heaps; and we got about thirty sheep two days ago."
"Capital," said Lennox, rubbing his hands softly. "Now tell me--where
is the grain stored?"
"Where the niggers put it when they collected it there."
"Not moved?"
"No. It couldn't be in a better place--a worse, I mean. Bother the
cave! I wish you wouldn't keep on thinking about it."
"Very well, I won't. Tell me about the prisoners."
"Ah, that's better. The brutes! But there's nothing to tell about
them. I wish they had got their deserts, but we none of us wanted to
shoot them, though they did deserve it."
"Oh, I don't know," said Lennox. "They're a rough lot of countrymen,
and they think that everything is fair in war, I suppose. Where are
they?"
"Number 4 tin hut, and a fellow inside with them night and day. Then
there's the sentry outside. Makes a lot of trouble for the men."
Lennox was silent for a few minutes before speaking again.
"I say, Bob."
"Yes?"
"Look at this cut on my forehead."
"I'm looking. Very pretty. It's healing fast now."
"Will it leave much of a scar?"
"I dare say it will," said Dickenson mockingly. "Add to your beauty.
But you ought to have one on the other side to match it."
"I wasn't thinking about my looks," said Lennox, smiling.
"Gammon! You were."
"I suppose I must have been dashed against a block of stone."
"Good job, too. Doctor said it acted like a safety-valve, and its
bleeding kept off fever."
"I suppose so. I must have been dashed against something with great
force, though."
"Oh, never mind that. Will you leave off thinking about that cave?"
"No, I won't," said Lennox coolly. "I must think about it now; I can't
help it."
"Then I'm off."
"Why?"
"Because you were getting better, and now you are trying to make
yourself worse."
"Oh no, I'm not; and you are not going. Talking to you about it acts
like a safety-valve, too. There, it's of no use for you to try and stop
me, Bob, for if you go I shall think all the more. I've been wanting to
tell you all about it for days."
"But the doctor said I was not to encourage you to talk about the
horror."
"Well, you are not encouraging me; you are flopping on me like a wet
blanket. I say, it was horrible, wasn't it?"
"No," said Dickenson angrily; "but this is."
Lennox was silent for a few minutes, and he lay so quiet that Dickenson
leaned forward to gaze at him earnestly, "All right, Bob. I'm here, and
getting awfully strong compared with what I was a week ago. I shall get
up and come out to-morrow."
"You won't. You're too weak yet."
"Oh no, I'm not. I shall be on duty in two or three days, and as soon
as I'm well enough I want you and the sergeant to come with me to have
another exploration with lanterns and a rope."
"There, I knew it. You're going off your head again."
"Not a bit of it."
"Then why can't you leave the wretched cave alone?"
"Because it interests me. I mean to go down again at the end of the
rope."
"Bah! You're mad as a hatter. I knew you'd bring it on."
"There, it's of no use. I want to tell you all about it."
"If you think I'm going to stop here and listen to a long rigmarole
about that dreadful hole, you're mistaken; so hold your tongue."
"There's no long rigmarole, Bob. You know how the corporal yelled out
and clutched at me."
"No; I only guessed at something of the kind," replied Dickenson
unwillingly. "We could not see much."
"Well, in his horror at finding himself lifted he completely upset me.
It was all in a moment: I felt myself gliding over the slimy stone, and
then I was plunged into deep water and drawn right down."
"But you struck out and tried to rise?" said Dickenson, overcome now by
his natural eagerness to know how his comrade escaped.
"Struck out--tried to rise!" cried Lennox, with a bitter laugh. "I have
some recollection of struggling in black strangling darkness for what
seemed an age, the water thundering the while in my ears, before all was
blank."
"But you were horror-stricken, and felt that you must go on fighting for
your life?"
"No," said Lennox quietly. "I felt nothing till the darkness suddenly
turned to bright sunshine, and I have some recollection of being driven
against stones and tossed here and there, till I dragged myself out of a
shallow place among the rocks and up amongst the green growth. Then a
curious drowsy feeling came over me, and all was blank again. That's
all."
"But weren't you in agony--in horrible fear?"
"Yes, when I felt myself falling and tried to save myself."
"I mean afterwards, when you were being forced through, that horrible
passage."
"What horrible passage?" said Lennox, with a faint smile.
"What horrible passage, man? Why, the tunnel, or channel, or whatever
it is--the subterranean way of the stream under the kopje, in the bowels
of the earth."
"I told you I was horrified for a moment, and then I was choking in the
water, till all seemed blank, and then I appeared to wake in the hot
sunshine, where I was knocked about till I crawled out on to the bank."
"But didn't you suffer dreadfully?"
"No."
"Didn't you think about England and home, and all that?"
"No," said Lennox quietly.
"Weren't you in fearful agony as you fought for your life?"
"Not the slightest; and I don't think I struggled much."
"Well, upon my word!" cried Dickenson in a tone of disgust. "I like
this!"
"Do you, Bob? I didn't."
"You didn't? Look here, Drew, I'm disgusted with you."
"Why?" said Lennox, opening his eyes wider.
"Because you're a miserable impostor--a regular humbug."
"What! don't you believe I went through all that?"
"Oh yes, I believe you went through all the--all the--all the hole; but
there don't seem to have been anything else."
"Why, what else did you expect, old fellow?"
"What I've been asking you--pains and agonies and frightful sufferings
and despairs, and that sort of thing; and there you were, pop down into
the darkness, pop under the kopje, pop out into the sunshine, and pop--
no, I mean, all over."
"Well, what would you have had me do? Stop underneath for a month?"
"No, of course not; but, hang it all! if it hadn't been that you got
that cut on your forehead and a few scratches and chips, it was no worse
than taking a dive."
"Not much," said Lennox, looking amused.
"Well, I really call it disgusting--a miserable imposition upon your
friends."
"Why, Bob, you are talking in riddles, old fellow, or else my head's so
weak still that I can't quite follow you."
"Then I'll try and make my meaning clear to your miserably weak
comprehension, sir," cried Dickenson, with mock ferocity. "Here were
you just taking a bit of a dive, and there were we, your friends, from
the captain down to the latest-joined private, suffering--oh! I can't
tell you what we suffered. I don't mean to say that Roby was breaking
his heart because he thought there was an end of you; but poor old
Sergeant James nearly went mad with despair, and the whole party was
ready to plunge in after you so as to get drowned too."
"Did they take it like that, Bob?"
"Take it like that? Why, of course they did."
Lennox was silent for a few moments before he said softly, "And did poor
old Bob Dickenson feel something like that?"
"Why, of course he did. Broke down and made a regular fool of himself,
just like a great silly-looking girl--that is," he added hastily, "I
mean, nearly--almost, you know."
"I'm very sorry, Bob," said Lennox gently, and his eyes looked large as
he laid his hand upon his comrade's sleeve.
"Then you don't look it, sir. I say, don't you go and pitch such a lame
tale as this into anybody else's ears. Here were we making a dead hero
of you, and all the time--There, I've seen one of those little black and
white Welsh birds--dippers, don't they call 'em?--do what you did,
scores of times."
"In the dark, Bob?"
"Well--er--no--not in the dark, or of course I couldn't have seen it.
There, that'll do. Talk about a set of fellows being sold by a lot of
sentiment: we were that lot."
"The way of the world, Bob," said Lennox rather bitterly; "a fellow must
die for people to find out that he's a bit of a hero. But please to
recollect I did nothing; it was all accident."
"And an awfully bad accident too, old chap; only I don't see why the
doctor need have prohibited your talking about the affair. We've all
been thinking you went through untold horrors, when it was just
nothing."
"Just nothing, Bob," said Lennox, looking at him with a wistful smile on
his lip.
"Well, no; I won't say that, because of course it was as near as a
toucher. For instance, the hole might have been too tight to let you
through, and then--Ugh! Drew, old chap, don't let us talk about it any
more. It's a hot day, and my face is wet with perspiration, but my
spine feels as if it had turned to ice. Yes, it was as near as a
toucher. I would rather drop into an ambush of the Boers a dozen times
over than go through such a half-hour as that again."