you did, over and over again."

"A lie! No. I said Lennox. Ah! To run for his miserable life--a
coward--a cur!"

"What!" cried Dickenson angrily; but Roby lay silent as if exhausted,
and, to the young officer's horror and disgust, a womanly sob came from
the corporal's rough pallet at the end of the hut, and in a whining
voice he moaned:

"Yes, sir; he don't mean you, but Mr Lennox, sir. I saw him run, and
it's all true."

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.

"THERE'S NOTHING LIKE THE TRUTH."

Bob Dickenson's jaw dropped as he stood staring for some moments at the
corporal--as if he could not quite believe his ears. It seemed to him
that this had something to do with the explosion, and that his hearing
apparatus was still wrong, twisting and distorting matters, or else that
the excitement of the past night and his exertions had combined with the
aforesaid explosion to make him stupid and confused.

But all the same he felt that he could think and weigh and compare
Roby's words with those of the corporal, and experienced the sensation
of a tremendous effervescence of rage bubbling up within his breast and
rising higher and higher to his lips till it burst forth in words hot
with indignation.

"Why," he roared, "you miserable, snivelling--lying--Oh, tut, tut, tut!
what a fool I am, quarrelling with a man off his head!--Here, orderly,"
he continued, turning to the hospital attendant, "this fellow May
doesn't know what he's saying."

"So I keep on telling him, sir," said the man sharply; "but he will keep
at it. Here's poor Captain Roby regularly off his chump, and bursting
out every now and then calling everybody a coward, and, as if that ain't
bad enough, Corporal May goes on encouraging him by saying _Amen_ every
time."

"I don't," cried the corporal, in a very vigorous tone for one so badly
injured; "and look here, if you make false charges against me I'll
report you to the doctor next time he comes round, and to the colonel
too."

"What!" cried the orderly fiercely. "Yes, you'd better! Recollect
you're down now, and it's my turn. I've had plenty of your nastiness,
Mr Jack-in-office Corporal, for a year past, when I was in the ranks.
You ain't a corporal now, but in hospital; and if you say much more and
don't lie quiet I'll roll up a pad of lint and stuff that in your
mouth."

"You daren't," cried the corporal, speaking the simple truth defiantly,
and without a trace of his previous whining tone.

"O