Part 60 (2/2)

The only answer he obtained was from his comrade's piece, for the latter fired again, and another Boer sprang into sight not a hundred yards away, fell upon his knees, and then rolled over.

”Ingle, old fellow,” cried West; ”don't say you're hurt!”

”Oh!” groaned Ingleborough. ”Wasn't going to, old man; but that last brute got me.”

”Hurt much?”

”Much? It's like red-hot iron through me. Oh, if I only had some water!”

”Water?” cried West, springing up. ”Yes; I'll get some.”

_Crack, crack, crack_! Half-a-dozen rifles rang out in different directions, and in an instant West suffered for his thoughtless unselfish act, for he felt as if someone had struck him a cruel blow with a sjambok across the face from the front, while someone else had driven the b.u.t.t of his rifle with all his force full upon his shoulder-blade--this blow from the back driving him forward upon his knees and then causing him to fall across Ingleborough. Then for a few moments everything seemed as a blank.

”Hurt much?” came the next minute, as if from a distance.

”Hurt? No!” said West huskily, and he made an effort and rose to his knees. Then, stung to rage by an agonising pain which stiffened him into action, he levelled his rifle once more, took a quick aim at a couple of the Boers who were running towards them in a stooping position, fired, and distinctly saw one of the two drop to the ground.

The next moment someone fired over his shoulder, and the other went down, just as West's rifle dropped from his hand and he fell over sideways, yielding to a horribly sickening sensation, followed by a half-dreamy fancy that someone had felt for and got hold of his hand, to grip it in a way that was at first terribly painful--a pang seeming to run up from hand to shoulder. The pain appeared to grow worse and worse, then deadened, and came again, and so on, like spasms of agony, while all the time the firing went on from all around.

”Poor old Ingle!” was about his last clear thought; ”they've killed him, and now they're firing till they've quite frightened me! Oh, how they keep on shooting! Get it over, you cowardly brutes--nearly a score of you against two! Oh!” he groaned then: ”if I could only have delivered my despatch!”

His left hand was raised painfully to his breast to feel whether the paper was still safe; but the pain of the effort was sickening, and his hand glided over something wet and warm and sticky.

”Poor old Ingle! Blood!” flashed through his brain, as the rifle reports rang out from very close now, and then all was blank.

The end of everything seemed to have come.

CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT.

THE SURGEON'S WORDS.

”Bad enough, poor fellow; but I think I can pull them both round.

Nothing vital, you see, touched, and these Mauser bullets make wonderfully clean wounds!”

”And the other?”

”Bad flesh-wounds--great loss of blood. I just got at that artery in time.”

West heard these words spoken by someone whose head kept getting in his way as he lay staring up at the great bright stars directly overhead, and it seemed very tiresome.

He tried to speak and ask whoever it was to move aside; but his tongue would not stir, and he lay perfectly still, trying to think what it all meant, and in a dull far-off sort of way it gradually dawned upon him that the people near him were talking about the Boers he had somehow or another and for some reason shot down.

Then, as he thought, the calm feeling he was enjoying grew troubled, and he began to recall the fact that he had been shooting somebody's ponies to supply somebody else with food, and that he must have been mad, for he felt convinced that they would not be nice eating, as he had heard that the fat was oily and the flesh tasted sweet. Besides which, it would be horrible to have to eat horseflesh at a time when his throat was dry with an agonising thirst. Then the terrible thought forced itself upon him that while shooting down ponies he had missed them and killed men instead, and once more all was blank.

The next time the power of thinking came to the poor fellow all was very dark, and a jarring pain kept running through him, caused by the motion of his hard bed, which had somehow grown wheels and was being dragged along.

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