Part 24 (2/2)

”Feel equal to a cigarette? It will buck you up, Bunny. No, that one in the silver paper, I've h.o.a.rded it for this. Here's a light; and so Bunny takes the Sullivan! All honor to the sporting rabbit!”

”At least I went over like one,” said I, sending the only clouds into the blue, and chiefly wis.h.i.+ng for their longer endurance. I was as hot as a cinder from my head to one foot; the other leg was ceasing to belong to me.

”Wait a bit,” says Raffles, puckering; ”there's a gray felt hat at deep long-on, and I want to add it to the bag for vengeance.... Wait-yes-no, no luck! I must pitch 'em up a bit more. Hallo! Magazine empty. How goes the Sullivan, Bunny? Rum to be smoking one on the veldt with a hole in your leg!”

”It's doing me good,” I said, and I believe it was. But Raffles lay looking at me as he lightened his bandolier.

”Do you remember,” he said softly, ”the day we first began to think about the war? I can see the pink, misty river light, and feel the first bite there was in the air when one stood about; don't you wish we had either here! 'Orful slorter, orful slorter;' that fellow's face, I see it too; and here we have the thing he cried. Can you believe it's only six months ago?”

”Yes,” I sighed, enjoying the thought of that afternoon less than he did; ”yes, we were slow to catch fire at first.”

”Too slow,” he said quickly.

”But when we did catch,” I went on, wis.h.i.+ng we never had, ”we soon burnt up.”

”And then went out,” laughed Raffles gayly. He was loaded up again. ”Another over at the gray felt hat,” said he; ”by Jove, though, I believe he's having an over at me!”

”I wish you'd be careful,” I urged. ”I heard it too.”

”My dear Bunny, it's on the knees you wot of. If anything's down in the specifications surely that is. Besides-that was nearer!”

”To you?”

”No, to him. Poor devil, he has his specifications too; it's comforting to think that.... I can't see where that one pitched; it may have been a wide; and it's very nearly the end of the over again. Feeling worse, Bunny?”

”No, I've only closed my eyes. Go on talking.”

”It was I who let you in for this,” he said, at his bandolier again.

”No, I'm glad I came out.”

And I believe I still was, in a way; for it WAS rather fine to be wounded, just then, with the pain growing less; but the sensation was not to last me many minutes, and I can truthfully say that I have never felt it since.

”Ah, but you haven't had such a good time as I have!”

”Perhaps not.”

Had his voice vibrated, or had I imagined it? Pain-waves and loss of blood were playing tricks with my senses; now they were quite dull, and my leg alive and throbbing; now I had no leg at all, but more than all my ordinary senses in every other part of me. And the devil's orchestra was playing all the time, and all around me, on every cla.s.s of fiendish instrument, which you have been made to hear for yourselves in every newspaper. Yet all that I heard was Raffles talking.

”I have had a good time, Bunny.”

Yes, his voice was sad; but that was all; the vibration must have been in me.

”I know you have, old chap,” said I.

”I am grateful to the General for giving me to-day. It may be the last. Then I can only say it's been the best-by Jove!”

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