Then again his mighty laugh ran through the hospital ward.  “Which one?” he said; “why, all of them, God bless them.  But the maid that is nearest is always the dearest.”  “Shut up, you Goth,” I said, “and tell me about Dowling, for some day I shall write the story, and I would like to hear it from the lips of one of his enemies.”  The Swede lay back upon his pillow, stroking the golden horns of hair that fell each side of his mouth, and I noticed that the lips which a little time before had been smiling into the face of the nurse were now hard set and stern.  So I could have imagined him standing by the side of his gun, or rushing headlong on to our ranks.  A man with a mouth like that could not flinch in the hour of peril if he tried, for his jaw had the Kitchener grip, the antithesis of the parrot pout of the dandy, or the flabby fulness of the fool.

“It was in the fore part of the day,” he said at length.  “We had been posted snugly overnight on both sides of two ranges of kopjes, for we knew that your fellows were going to attempt a reconnaissance next day.  How did we know? you ask.  Well, comrade, ask no questions of that kind, and I’ll tell you no lies.  The truth I won’t tell you.”

But we knew, and we were ready.  We were disappointed when we saw the force, for we had expected something much bigger, and had made arrangements for a larger capture.  It was only a troop of Australian Horse that came our way, and ‘the little devil’ was riding at their head.  We bided our time, hoping that he might be followed by more men, and, above all, we expected and wanted some guns; but they did not put in an appearance, so we loosed upon the little troop.  They were fairly ambushed; they did not know that a rifle was within miles of them until the bullets were singing through their ranks.  Horses plunged suddenly forward, reared, lurched now to the near side, now to the off, then blundered forward on their heads, for many of our men fired at the chargers instead of at the riders.  Dowling’s horse went down with a bullet between the flap of the saddle and the crease of the shoulder, and the little chap went spinning over his head amongst the rocks.  But a good many saddles were empty.  He was up in a moment, yelling to his men to ride for their lives, and they rode.  We charged from cover, and rode down on the men who had fallen, and as we closed in on them your countryman lifted his rifle and loosed on us.

“One of our fellows took a flying shot at him at close quarters, for his rifle was talking the language of death, and that is a tongue no man likes to listen to.  The bit of lead took him in the eye and came out by his ear, and down he went.  But he climbed up in a moment, and his rifle was going to his shoulder again, when I fired to break his arm, and carried his thumb away—­the thumb of the right hand, I think.  The rifle clattered on to the rocks, but as we drew round him he pulled his revolver with his one good hand, and started to pot us.  He