Part 16 (2/2)

”Yes, yes; the things begin to come back to me; you were on a bay horse.

I remember thinking what a skeleton it was.”

”No wonder; these African pastures are terribly bare.”

”And now I remember that I thought of something else. It was those verses in Homer, the verses that Diomed says to Glaucus when they meet on the battle-field, and find that they are old family friends.”[40]

The young Roman laughed aloud. ”Now, this is curious,” he cried. ”We are bound to be friends, if thinking the same things be a mark of friends.h.i.+p. I remember that the very same thought about Glaucus and Diomed occurred to me. You have not forgotten everything, it is clear.”

”Come, my dear sir,” interposed the physician, ”you must not let him talk so much. Tell him your story, and then leave him to get a little rest.”

”Well,” said Scipio, ”what I have to say is very soon told. You will remember the discharge from the walls of the fort that checked our advance. It was admirably calculated; but, of course, when the fighting was so close as it was at the time, and the front ranks of the two armies were actually mixed together, it could not damage us without doing some harm to you. I saw two or three of your men struck down, manifestly, from the way in which they fell, by some missile from the walls. One of them I noticed particularly, because he was close to you.

There could be no mistake, for there was a clear s.p.a.ce round you. Our men had fallen back, and yours were making the best of their way to the gates. You two were rather behind the rest. I saw you stoop as if to lift your companion from the ground. You were looking towards us, for I particularly remember that I saw your face. You raised the man from the ground, but then your foot seemed to slip, and you fell forwards. Then you raised the man again. Several of us were watching you, and I have heard from them since that their recollections agree exactly with mine.

And of this, too, I am quite certain, there was not a hand raised against you from our side of the field of battle. Well, we all saw you rise again with the man in your arms. You got him over your shoulder, for that, of course, was the easiest way of carrying him, but you still had your face looking our way. And before you turned you were struck by--”

[Ill.u.s.tration: ”I SAW YOU STOOP AND LIFT YOUR COMPANION FROM THE GROUND.”]

”Before I turned?” interrupted the sick man, who had been listening with rapt attention to the narrative. ”Before I turned, you say; you are sure that I was struck by my friends behind me?”

”As sure,” replied Scipio, ”as that I am sitting here and speaking to you at this moment.”

”Go on, then.”

”Before you turned you were struck from behind. The first blow was on the back of your leg. I saw you put your hand to the place. And you had hardly done that when you were felled to the ground by a second blow.

That was on your head. We guessed as much from the way you fell; and when we came to examine you afterwards, we found it to be as I have said. Your good physician here will tell you the particulars.”

”Yes,” said the leech, ”I will at the proper time. But for the present my patient has heard enough. Indeed, unless I am very much mistaken, he has heard too much.”

”Whether it is enough or too much,” said Cleanor, ”I must hear it all.

It would be ten times worse to be left in this suspense. I can only judge from what you say that I must have been struck from behind, that is by my own friends. But that treachery I can't believe. What do you say, sir,” he went on, looking to the physician; ”can you throw any light on the matter?”

”Be calm, be calm, my friend,” said the physician. ”You will undo all the good that we have been doing you for the last ten days. Here, let me feel your pulse.... It is just as I thought,” he went on, ”a regular bounding pulse. I would have given anything for you to have had such a pulse when I first took you in hand. But now it means fever, and fever means I don't know what.”

”Still, I must have the whole story now,” persisted Cleanor. ”Do you think I can sleep with this doubt regarding my friends hanging over me?”

”Well, a wilful man will have his way, but, mind, I wash my hands of the whole business. I am not responsible for what may happen. And it promised to be such a beautiful cure, too!”

”For heaven's sake go on! Tell me how I came to be wounded?” cried the patient, with an emphasis of which no one would have thought him capable half an hour before.

”Well,” replied the physician, ”I will tell you what I know, but it is under protest. You see this”--he produced from his pocket a leaden bullet of the kind commonly used in slings--”I extracted this from the wound on your hip. A nasty wound it was, and had caused a terrible loss of blood. You see that mark? It is not a Roman mark, certainly. Do you recognize it? Unless I am very much mistaken, it is the Carthaginian letter that answers to what we Greeks call _alpha_. What do you say?”

”You are right,” said Cleanor. ”I have myself given them out to the slingers from the stores. Yes, it is a Carthaginian bullet.”

”Then there is another thing,” the physician went on. ”When they were stripping you to put you into bed, this stone that I hold in my hand fell out of a fold in your clothes. There were some fragments of hair upon it, and I recognized the hair as yours. See, they are here still;”

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