Tom looked up and rose to his feet.
"What, old fellow?"
"Look here, Tom!" said Charlie, showing me.
At the sight of me, bruised and battered as I was, Tom's feelings
overcame him again. He seized me eagerly, and looked long and tenderly
into my face; then his tears came again, and once more he sunk on his
knees at Charlie's side and buried his face in his hands.
The place was getting dark. The noise of voices outside and the distant
roar of guns slowly died away; the guards for the night were called out,
and one by one soldier and invalid fell asleep after their hard day's
toil. But Tom Drift never moved from Charlie's bedside, nor did
Charlie, by word or movement, disturb him. In the silence of that night
I seemed to be back in the past--when, years ago, I first knew these
two. The dreary hospital changed, in my imagination, into the old
Randlebury dormitory.
These beds all round were occupied not by wounded soldiers, but by
soundly-sleeping boys, worn out with sports or study. And the two
between whom I lay were no longer suffering men, but the light-hearted
lads of long ago. I could almost fancy myself ticking through the
silent watches; and when now and then the fingers that held me closed
over me, or fondled me tenderly, I could almost have believed I heard
the low sweet whistling of an innocent boy as he furtively turned in his
waking moments to his father's precious gift.
It all seemed so strangely natural that as I woke from my dream it
required an effort to remember where I really was. All was silent
around me. I peered first at my master, then at Tom Drift; they were
both asleep--sleeping, perhaps, as simply as ever they did in those
bygone days--Tom kneeling still by the bedside with his head upon his
arms, and Charlie turned towards him with one hand upon his friend's,
and I--I lay between them.
Thus the sultry Indian night passed, and then at the little window
opposite there came a faint gleam of light.
Charlie woke first, and, laying his hand gently on Tom's arm, said, "Tom
Drift, old fellow!"
With a start and a bound Tom was awake and on his feet, staring in a
bewildered way round him.
At last his eyes fell on Charlie, and he remembered where he was. "I
was asleep and dreaming," he said.
"So was I," said Charlie--and _I_ could almost guess what their dreams
had been.
"Now, Tom," said Charlie, "you must look to my wound."
"My poor boy!" exclaimed Tom; "to think I have forgotten it all this
time!"
"It's not worth bothering about, after all," said my master, "But see,
Tom, the day is breaking."
"Ay!" said Tom, looking down with a new light in his weary eyes, "the
day _is_ breaking!"