“Oh, yes, there is no objection whatever.  Your wound is doing as well as can be; though, of course, you are still weak from loss of blood.  I shall send you up this afternoon to the hospital just established in the park of the Dil Koosha.  We shall get you all out as soon as we can, for the stench of this town at present is dreadful, and wounds cannot be expected to do well in such a poisoned atmosphere.”

“Is this man badly hit, doctor?”

“Very dangerously.  I have scarcely a hope of saving him, and think it probable that he may not live another twenty-four hours.  Of course, he may take a change for the better.  I will take you to him.  I have finished here now.”

“It must have been a bad time for you, doctor,” Mallett said, as they went across.

“Tremendously hard, but most interesting.  I had not had more than two hours’ sleep at a time since the fighting began, till last night, and then I could not keep up any longer.  Of course, it has been the same with us all, and the heat has made it very trying.  I am particularly anxious to get the wounded well out of the place, for now that the excitement is over I expect an outbreak of fever or dysentery.

“There, that is your man in the corner bed over there.”

Mallett went over to the bedside, and looked at the wounded man.  His face was drawn and pinched, his eyes sunken in his head, his face deadly pale, and his hair matted with perspiration.

“Do you know me, Captain Mallett?”

“No, lad, I cannot say that I do, though when the doctor told me your name it seemed familiar to me.  Very likely I should have recognised you if I had met you a week since, but, you see, we are both altered a good deal from the effect of our wounds.”

“I am the son of Farmer Lechmere, your tenant.”

“Good heavens! man.  You don’t mean to say you are Lechmere’s eldest son, George!  What in the world brought you to this?”

“You did,” the man said, sternly.  “Your villainy brought me here.”

Frank Mallett gave a start of astonishment that cost him so violent a twinge in his wound that he almost cried out with sudden pain.

“What wild idea have you got into your head, my poor fellow?” he said soothingly.  “I am conscious of having done no wrong to you or yours.  I saw your father and mother on the afternoon before I came away.  They made no complaint of anything.”

“No, they were contented enough.  Do you know, Captain Mallett, that I loved Martha Bennett?”

“No.  I have been so little at home of recent years that I know very little of the private affairs of my tenants, but I remember her, of course, and I was grieved to learn by a letter from Sir John Greendale the other day that in some strange way she was missing.”

“Who knew that better than yourself?” the man said, raising himself on his elbow, and fixing a look of such deadly hatred upon Mallett, that the latter involuntarily drew back a step.