you hadn't been of the
stupid, thick-headed breed, you would have suffered from a comminuted
fracture of the skull. Can't you lie still?"

"No, Doctor. I want to get up."

"And make yourself worse?"

"No; but after what you have done, I feel so much better and more
comfortable that I want to be up and doing."

"Nonsense! You have been doing ten times too much, and I tell you
seriously, sir, that another day or two of what you have gone through in
making your escape, and you must have been dangerously ill with fever."

"But I feel so much better, Doctor."

"Of course you do. I was just able to catch you in the nick of time,
and now I have done my part, and you must leave the rest to Nature."

"But I want to go out with one of the detachments."

"What for? To break down directly, and interfere with the good four or
half-a-dozen of the lads would be doing, from their time being taken up
in carrying you on a bamboo litter?"

"Oh Doctor, I shouldn't break down."

"Oh, wouldn't you? Nice piece of impudence! Here am I, who have
devoted half my life to the tinkering up of damaged soldiers, and know
to a tittle how much a man can bear, all wrong, of course! And you, a
young jackanapes of a subaltern, a mere boy, tell me to my face that you
know better than I do!"

"No, no, Doctor; I beg your pardon!" said Archie. "I don't mean that.
It is only because I want to be out with the fellows, trying to run that
brutal scoundrel down."

"Yes, yes, my boy, I know. But wait. Everything possible is being
done, and any hour the news may come in that my poor child has been
found and some one has been shot down. Archie, my boy, nothing would
afford me greater delight than to see that lurid-looking heathen brought
in half-dead, and handed over to my tender mercies."

Archie burst out into a mocking laugh.

"What do you mean by that, sir?" said Dr Morley.

"I was thinking, Doctor, you would set to at once attending to his
wounds, and making him well as soon as you possibly could."

"What! A treacherous, cunning savage! I'd--Well, I suppose you are
right, boy. Habit's habit. But the British lawyers would tackle him
afterwards, and he would get his deserts. They'd put a stop to him
being Rajah of Dang any more. There, I've no time to stop gossiping
with you."

"But when may I get up, Doctor? It seems so absurd for me to be lying
here."

"That's what you think. Well, there, I won't be hard on you. If you