, sir," cried Dickenson, with mock ferocity. "Here were
you just taking a bit of a dive, and there were we, your friends, from
the captain down to the latest-joined private, suffering--oh! I can't
tell you what we suffered. I don't mean to say that Roby was breaking
his heart because he thought there was an end of you; but poor old
Sergeant James nearly went mad with despair, and the whole party was
ready to plunge in after you so as to get drowned too."

"Did they take it like that, Bob?"

"Take it like that? Why, of course they did."

Lennox was silent for a few moments before he said softly, "And did poor
old Bob Dickenson feel something like that?"

"Why, of course he did. Broke down and made a regular fool of himself,
just like a great silly-looking girl--that is," he added hastily, "I
mean, nearly--almost, you know."

"I'm very sorry, Bob," said Lennox gently, and his eyes looked large as
he laid his hand upon his comrade's sleeve.

"Then you don't look it, sir. I say, don't you go and pitch such a lame
tale as this into anybody else's ears. Here were we making a dead hero
of you, and all the time--There, I've seen one of those little black and
white Welsh birds--dippers, don't they call 'em?--do what you did,
scores of times."

"In the dark, Bob?"

"Well--er--no--not in the dark, or of course I couldn't have seen it.
There, that'll do. Talk about a set of fellows being sold by a lot of
sentiment: we were that lot."

"The way of the world, Bob," said Lennox rather bitterly; "a fellow must
die for people to find out that he's a bit of a hero. But please to
recollect I did nothing; it was all accident."

"And an awfully bad accident too, old chap; only I don't see why the
doctor need have prohibited your talking about the affair. We've all
been thinking you went through untold horrors, when it was just
nothing."

"Just nothing, Bob," said Lennox, looking at him with a wistful smile on
his lip.

"Well, no; I won't say that, because of course it was as near as a
toucher. For instance, the hole might have been too tight to let you
through, and then--Ugh! Drew, old chap, don't let us talk about it any
more. It's a hot day, and my face is wet with perspiration, but my
spine feels as if it had turned to ice. Yes, it was as near as a
toucher. I would rather drop into an ambush of the Boers a dozen times
over than go through such a half-hour as that again."

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

PREPARA