"Oh, come on up to Coll. My shin"ll stiffen if we stay jawin" here."
"Shut up, Turkey. I want to find out about this. Well?"
"He was stayin" at our house all the time I was ill."
"What for? Neglectin" the Coll. that way? "Thought he was in town."
"I was off my head, you know, and they said I kept on callin" for him."
"Cheek! You"re only a day-boy."
"He came just the same, and he about saved my life. I was all bunged up one night--just goin" to croak, the doctor said--and they stuck a tube or somethin" in my throat, and the Head sucked out the stuff."
"Ugh! "Shot if _I_ would!"
"He ought to have got diphtheria himself, the doctor said. So he stayed on at our house instead of going back. I"d ha" croaked in another twenty minutes, the doctor says."
Here the coachman, being under orders, whipped up and nearly ran over the three.
"My Hat!" said Beetle. "That"s pretty average heroic."
"Pretty average!" McTurk"s knee in the small of his back cannoned him into Stalky, who punted him back. "You ought to be hung!"
"And the Head ought to get the V.C.," said Stalky. "Why, he might have been dead _and_ buried by now. But he wasn"t. But he didn"t. Ho! ho! He just nipped through the hedge like a l.u.s.ty old blackbird. Extra-special, five hundred lines, an" gated for a week--all sereno!"
"I"ve read o" somethin" like that in a book," said Beetle. "Gummy, what a chap! Just think of it!"
"I"m thinking," said McTurk; and he delivered a wild Irish yell that made the team turn round.
"Shut your fat mouth," said Stalky, dancing with impatience. "Leave it to your Uncle Stalky, and he"ll have the Head on toast. If you say a word, Beetle, till I give you leave, I swear I"ll slay you.
_Habeo Capitem crinibus minimis._ I"ve got him by the short hairs! Now look as if nothing had happened."
There was no need of guile. The school was too busy cheering the drawn match. It hung round the lavatories regardless of muddy boots while the team washed. It cheered Crandall minor whenever it caught sight of him, and it cheered more wildly than ever after prayers, because the Old Boys in evening dress, openly twirling their mustaches, attended, and instead of standing with the masters, ranged themselves along the wall immediately before the prefects; and the Head called them over, too--majors, minors, and tertiuses, after their old names.
"Yes, it"s all very fine," he said to his guests after dinner, "but the boys are getting a little out of hand. There will be trouble and sorrow later, I"m afraid. You"d better turn in early, Crandall. The dormitory will be sitting up for you. I don"t know to what dizzy heights you may climb in your profession, but I do know you"ll never get such absolute adoration as you"re getting now."
"Confound the adoration. I want to finish my cigar, sir."
"It"s all pure gold. Go where glory waits, Crandall--minor."
The setting of that apotheosis was a ten-bed attic dormitory, communicating through doorless openings with three others. The gas flickered over the raw pine washstands. There was an incessant whistling of drafts, and outside the naked windows the sea beat on the Pebbleridge.
"Same old bed--same old mattress, I believe," said Crandall, yawning.
"Same old everything. Oh, but I"m lame! I"d no notion you chaps could play like this." He caressed a battered shin. "You"ve given us all something to remember you by."
It needed a few minutes to put them at their ease; and, in some way they could not understand, they were more easy when Crandall turned round and said his prayers--a ceremony he had neglected for some years.
"Oh, I _am_ sorry. I"ve forgotten to put out the gas."
"Please don"t bother," said the prefect of the dormitory. "Worthington does that."
A nightgowned twelve-year-old, who had been waiting to show off, leaped from his bed to the bracket and back again, by way of a washstand.
"How d"you manage when he"s asleep?" said Crandall, chuckling.
"Shove a cold cleek down his neck."
"It was a wet sponge when I was junior in the dormitory... Hullo! What"s happening?"
The darkness had filled with whispers, the sound of trailing rugs, bare feet on bare boards, protests, giggles, and threats such as:
"Be quiet, you a.s.s!... Squattez-vous on the floor, then!... I swear you aren"t going to sit on _my_ bed!... Mind the tooth-gla.s.s," etc.
"Sta--Corkran said," the prefect began, his tone showing his sense of Stalky"s insolence, "that perhaps you"d tell us about that business with Duncan"s body."
"Yes--yes--yes," ran the keen whispers. "Tell us"
"There"s nothing to tell. What on earth are you chaps hoppin" about in the cold for?"
"Never mind us," said the voices. "Tell about Fat-Sow."
So Crandall turned on his pillow and spoke to the generation he could not see.
"Well, about three months ago he was commanding a treasure-guard--a cart full of rupees to pay troops with--five thousand rupees in silver. He was comin" to a place called Fort Pearson, near Kalabagh."
"I was born there," squeaked a small f.a.g. "It was called after my uncle."
"Shut up--you and your uncle! Never mind him, Crandall."
"Well, ne"er mind. The Afridis found out that this treasure was on the move, and they ambushed the whole show a couple of miles before he got to the fort, and cut up the escort. Duncan was wounded, and the escort hooked it. There weren"t more than twenty Sepoys all told, and there were any amount of Afridis. As things turned out, I was in charge at Fort Pearson. Fact was, I"d heard the firing and was just going to see about it, when Duncan"s men came up. So we all turned back together.
They told me something about an officer, but I couldn"t get the hang of things till I saw a chap under the wheels of the cart out in the open, propped up on one arm, blazing away with a revolver. You see, the escort had abandoned the cart, and the Afridis--they"re an awfully suspicious gang--thought the retreat was a trap--sort of draw, you know--and the cart was the bait. So they had left poor old Duncan alone. "Minute they spotted how few we were, it was a race across the flat who should reach old Duncan first. We ran, and they ran, and we won, and after a little hackin" about they pulled off. I never knew it was one of us till I was right on top of him. There are heaps of Duncans in the service, and of course the name didn"t remind me. He wasn"t changed at all hardly. He"d been shot through the lungs, poor old man, and he was pretty thirsty.
I gave him a drink and sat down beside him, and--funny thing, too--he said, "Hullo, Toffee!" and I said, "Hullo, Fat-Sow! hope you aren"t hurt," or something of the kind. But he died in a minute or two--never lifted his head off my knees... I say, you chaps out there will get your death of cold. Better go to bed."
"All right. In a minute. But your cuts--your cuts. How did you get wounded?"
"That was when we were taking the body back to the Fort. They came on again, and there was a bit of a scrimmage."
"Did you kill any one?"
"Yes. Shouldn"t wonder. Good-night."
"Good-night. Thank you, Crandall. Thanks awf"ly, Crandall. Good-night."
The unseen crowds withdrew. His own dormitory rustled into bed and lay silent for a while.
"I say, Crandall"--Stalky"s voice was tuned to a wholly foreign reverence.
"Well, what?"