Part 30 (1/2)

house. This pleasure, however, was greatly dashed by the answers to his questions respecting friends. ”Dead,” ”dead,” ”killed,” were the replies that came to the greater part of the inquiries after those he had known, and the family in whom he was chiefly interested had suffered heavily. Mr. Hargreaves was killed; Mr. and Mrs. Ritchie and all their children had succ.u.mbed to the confinement and privation; but Mrs. Hargreaves and the girls were well. After briefly telling how they had escaped in disguise, after having been cut off from falling back after the successful sortie, d.i.c.k Warrener hurried off to the house where he heard that his friends were quartered.

It was outside the bounds of the old Residency, for the ground held had, since the arrival of Havelock's force, been considerably extended, and the ladies had had two rooms a.s.signed to them in a large building.

d.i.c.k knocked at the door of the room, and the ayah opened it--looked at him--gave a scream, and ran back into the room, leaving the door open.

d.i.c.k, seeing that it was a sitting-room, followed her in. Mrs.

Hargreaves, alarmed at the cry, had just risen from her chair, and Nelly and Edith ran in from the inner room as d.i.c.k entered. A general cry of astonishment broke from them.

”d.i.c.k Warrener!” Mrs. Hargreaves exclaimed. ”Is it possible? My clear boy, thank G.o.d I see you again. And your brother?”

”He escaped too,” d.i.c.k said.

Mrs. Hargreaves took him in her arms and kissed him as a dear relative would have done; for during the month they had been together the boys had become very dear to her, from their unvarying readiness to aid all who required it, from their self-devotion and their bravery. Nor were the girls less pleased, and they warmly embraced the young sailor, whom they had come to look upon as if he had been a member of the family, and whom they had wept as dead.

For a time all were too much moved to speak more than a few disjointed words, for the sad changes which had occurred since they had last met were present in all their thoughts. Nelly, the youngest, was the first to recover, and wiping away her tears, she said, half-laughing, half-crying:

”I hate you, d.i.c.k, frightening us into believing that you were killed, when you were alive and well all the time. But I never quite believed it after all. I said all along that you couldn't have been killed; didn't I, mamma? and that monkeys always got out of sc.r.a.pes somehow.”

Mrs. Hargreaves smiled.

”I don't think you put it in that way exactly, Nelly; but I will grant that between your fits of crying you used to a.s.sert over and over again that you did not believe that they were killed. And now, my dear boy, tell us how this seeming miracle has come about.”

Then they sat down quietly, and d.i.c.k told the whole story; and Mrs.

Hargreaves warmly congratulated him on the manner in which they had escaped, and upon the presence of mind they had shown. Then she in turn told him what they had gone through and suffered. Edith burst into tears, and left the room, and her mother presently went after her.

”Well, Nelly, I have seen a lot since I saw you, have I not?”

”Yes, you are a dear, brave boy, d.i.c.k,” the girl said.

”Even though I am a monkey, eh?” d.i.c.k answered. ”And did you really cry when you thought I was dead?”

”Yes,” the girl said demurely; ”I always cry when I lose my pets. There was the dearest puppy I ever had--”

d.i.c.k laughed quietly. ”Who is the monkey now?” he asked.

”I am,” she said frankly; ”but you know I can't help teasing you, d.i.c.k.”

”Don't balk yourself, Nelly, I like it. I should like to be teased by you all my life,” he said in lower tones.

The girl flushed up rosy red. ”If you could always remain as you are now,” she said after a little pause, ”just an impudent mids.h.i.+pman, I should not mind it. Do you know, d.i.c.k, they give terriers gin to prevent their growing; don't you think you might stop yourself? It is quite sad,” she went on pathetically, ”to think that you may grow up into a great lumbering man.”

”I am quite in earnest, Nelly,” d.i.c.k said, looking preternaturally stern.

”Yes,” Nelly said, ”I have always understood mids.h.i.+pmen were quite in earnest when they talked nonsense.”

”I am quite in earnest,” d.i.c.k said solemnly and fixedly again.

”No, really, d.i.c.k, we are too old for that game,” Nelly said, with a great affectation of gravity. ”I think we could enjoy hide-and-seek together, or even blindman's buff; but you know children never play at being little lovers after they are quite small. I remember a dear little boy, he used to wear pinafores----”

Here Mrs. Hargreaves again entered the room, and d.i.c.k, jumping up suddenly, said that it was quite time for him to be off. ”I shall only just have time to be back by the time I promised.”