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When my senses slowly and wearily recovered I was still lying in my
master's pocket in the place where he had fallen at the storming of the
breach. Firing was still going on all around, but the shouts of our men
rose now from inside the fort instead of outside. And what shouting it
was! The enemy's guns ceased as if by magic, and the distant sounds of
firing showed plainly enough that the main body, now that we had
silenced the fort, was resuming its march on Lucknow.

All this flashed through me as my senses gradually returned, and before
even I had time to contemplate my own condition. What a wreck I was! A
helpless cripple past all healing, of no use to any one, and utterly
incapable of resuming the ordinary duties of life. But almost before I
could realise this, another care flashed through my mind and drove out
every other.

My master! What of him? There he lay, motionless and pale, with his
blue eyes closed, and a little stream of blood trickling down his chest.
Could he be dead?

Anxiously I listened if his heart still beat. At first all seemed
silent as death. Then there seemed a slight quiver, and as I listened
still, a faint throb. He lived still! How I longed for help to come!

And before long it came. Two soldiers of Charlie's regiment came out of
the fort and walked straight towards us.

"It was close to the breach he dropped," said one.

"Come on, then," said the other, "and we may be in time."

They were not long in finding the object of their search, and leant
eagerly over him.

"He's dead, poor fellow!" said the first; "shot right through the
heart!"

"So he is," said the other. "It must have--wait a bit!" cried he, in
sudden excitement. "Feel here, Tom, quick! he's alive yet! Oh, if we
could only get hold of a doctor!"

"Is there one about at all?"

"Not that I know of, unless the Major knows what to do."

Just then there came up a gaunt man, in an undress uniform, who, seeing
that they knelt over a wounded man, said,--

"Is he alive?"

"It's all he is, sir," replied one of the men; "and we're wondering how
to get a doctor to him."

"Let me see," said the stranger, approaching the body.

He knelt beside it and gently removed the coat from the wound.

"It looks as if he must be shot through the heart. Stay a bit, though,
here's a watch!" and he pulled me softly out of the pocket. As he did
so I looked up at him. Surely I knew his face! Surely so