He had repassed the ground already traversed
by some hundred yards or more, which seemed the length of many miles in
the hurricane that was driving over the earth and sky, when some outline
still duskier than the dusky shadow caught his sight; it was the body of
a horse, standing on guard over the fallen body of a man.
Another moment and he was beside them.
"My God! Are you hurt?"
He could see nothing but an indistinct and shapeless mass, without form
or color to mark it out from the brooding gloom and from the leaden
earth. But the voice he knew so well answered him with the old love and
fealty in it; eager with fear for him.
"When did you miss me, sir? I didn't mean you to know; I held on as long
as I could; and when I couldn't no longer, I thought you was safe not to
see I'd knocked over, so dark as it was."
"Great Heavens! You are hurt, then?"
"Just finished, sir. Lord! It don't matter. Only you ride on, Mr. Cecil;
ride on, I say. Don't mind me."
"What is it? When were you struck? O Heaven! I never dreamt----"
Cecil hung over him, striving in vain through the shadows to read the
truth from the face on which he felt by instinct the seal of death was
set.
"I never meant you should know, sir. I meant just to drop behind and
die on the quiet. You see, sir, it was just this way; they hit me as we
forced through them. There's the lance-head in my loins now. I pressed
it in hard, and kept the blood from flowing, and thought I should hold
out so till the sun rose.
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