awoke the first thing I saw was the round disc of
a sympathetic eyeglass, behind which was Good.

'How are you getting on, old chap?' said a voice from the
neighbourhood of the eyeglass.

'What are you doing here?' I asked faintly. 'You ought to be
at M'Arstuna -- have you run away, or what?'

'M'Arstuna,' he replied cheerfully. 'Ah, M'Arstuna fell last
week -- you've been unconscious for a fortnight, you see -- with
all the honours of war, you know -- trumpets blowing, flags flying,
just as though they had had the best of it; but for all that,
weren't they glad to go. Israel made for his tents, I can tell
you -- never saw such a sight in my life.'

'And Sorais?' I asked.

'Sorais -- oh, Sorais is a prisoner; they gave her up, the scoundrels,'
he added, with a change of tone -- 'sacrificed the Queen to save
their skins, you see. She is being brought up here, and I don't
know what will happen to her, poor soul!' and he sighed.

'Where is Curtis?' I asked.

'He is with Nyleptha. She rode out to meet us today, and there
was a grand to-do, I can tell you. He is coming to see you tomorrow;
the doctors (for there is a medical "faculty" in Zu-Vendis as
elsewhere) thought that he had better not come today.'

I said nothing, but somehow I thought to myself that notwithstanding
the doctors he might have given me a look; but there, when a
man is newly married and has just gained a great victory, he
is apt to listen to the advice of doctors, and quite right too.

Just then I heard a familiar voice informing me that 'Monsieur
must now couch himself,' and looking up perceived Alphonse's
enormous black mustachios curling away in the distance.

'So you are here?' I said.

'Mais oui, Monsieur; the war is now finished, my military instincts
are satisfied, and I return to nurse Monsieur.'

I laughed, or rather tried to; but whatever may have been Alphonse's
failings as a warrior (and I fear that he did not come up to
the level of his heroic grandfather in this particular, showing
thereby how true is the saying that it is a bad thing to be
overshadowed by some great ancestral name), a better or kinder
nurse never lived. Poor Alphonse! I hope he will always think
of me as kindly as I think of him.

On the morrow I saw Curtis and Nyleptha with him, and he told
me the whole history of what had happened since Umslopogaas and
I galloped wildly away from the battle to save the life of the
Queen. It seemed to me that h