"Join your section, sir!"
So Harry Bellairs joined his section and trudged along sore-footed
at its side--sore-hearted, too. He wondered whether any one would
ever say as much for him as Colonel Carter had chosen to say for
Mahommed Khan, or whether any one would have the right to say it!
He was ashamed of having left his wife behind and tortured with anxiety--
and smarting from the snub--a medley of sensations that were more
likely to make a man of him, if he had known it, than the whole
experience of a year's campaign! But in the dust and darkness, with
the blisters on his heels, and fifty men, who had overheard the colonel,
looking sidewise at him, his plight was pitiable.
They trudged until the dawn began to rise, bright yellow below the
drooping banian trees; only Colonel Carter and the advance-guard
riding. Then, when they stopped at a stream to water horses and
let them graze a bit and give the men a sorely needed rest, one of
the ring of outposts loosed off his rifle and shouted an alarm.
They had formed square in an instant, with the guns on one side and
the men on three, and the colonel and the wounded in the middle.
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