"We may run against each other sometimes out yonder; but it is a great
country, and you may be stationed hundreds of miles away."
"I hope so," I thought.
"Rather a rough time to come for you, my lad," he said, with what I took
to be a cynical smile; "but you will soon get used to the noise of the
guns."
"Of course," I said coldly. "Tell me more about the country. There are
plenty of tigers, I suppose?"
"Oh yes, but far more mosquitoes."
"Well, I know that," I said.
"You have never seen one, I suppose?"
"No."
"Then don't make the same mistake as the Irish private's wife at
Madras."
"What was that?" I said.
"It is an old story that you may not have heard. She was on shipboard,
and eagerly listening to an old sergeant's wife who had been there
before; and this woman told her that one of the great troubles of the
country was the mosquito. `An' what's a moskayto?' said the Irishwoman.
`Oh, a horrid creature with a long trunk, and it plunges it into you,
and sucks your blood.' At last they reached the coast, and the young
Irishwoman was eagerly watching the shore with its troops of turbaned
natives, palanquins, and mounted men, till suddenly a train of elephants
came in sight, steadily nodding their heads and waving their trunks.
The young Irishwoman drew a long deep breath, and looked as if she would
never see home again, and the old sergeant's wife asked her what was the
matter. `Oh,' she said, in a hoarse whisper, `is thim moskaytoes?'"
Captain Brace appeared so different as he told me this little old
anecdote, that I felt as if I should like him after all; but the light
died out of his face again, and he looked at me in a troubled way, as if
vexed with himself for having been so frivolous.
"How long have you been back home?" I said, so as to keep up the
conversation, for it was miserable to sit there in the silence.
"Six months," he said gravely.
"That's a good long holiday," I said merrily.
"Holiday, boy?" he cried, in so wild and passionate a tone that I was
startled, and looked at him wonderingly as he turned away.
"I--I beg your pardon," I said apologetically. "I'm afraid I have
blurted out something which I ought not to have said."
"Never mind--never mind," he said, with his head averted; "of course you
could not know."
He sank down on the edge of his berth with so sad and dejected a look
that I rose and went to him.
"Pray forgive me," I said. "I did not know."
He looked up at me with his face drawn and old.
"Thank you," he said, taking my hand. "There is nothing to forgive, my
lad. You may as well know, though. Brother-officers ought to be
brotherly, even if they are a little strange. It was a case of illness.
I took some one home--to save her life, and--"
He was silent for some moments, and I could feel his hand tremble as he
pressed mine very hard, and seemed to be making a desperate effort to be
calm, and master the emotion which evidently thrilled him.
"God knows best," I heard him whisper, hardly above his breath. And
then aloud, "I am going back to my duties, you see--alone."
The painful silence which followed was broken by the sound of a bell,
and he started up quite a changed man.
"There!" he said, in a strange tone, "soldiers have no time for sorrow.
It is the dead march, Vincent. Then a volley over the grave, and a
march back to quarters to a lively quick-step. Come, brother-officer,
we are abreast of Gravesend: as far as we shall go to-night, and there's
the dinner-bell. Right shoulder forward. March!"
"No," I said to myself. "I am sorry for him, but he is too strange. I
shall never like Captain Brace."