d better carry him to the hospital tent at once; I will send a
surgeon there.'

"I called the regimental surgeon up, and went with him to the hospital
tent, telling him what had happened. He shook his head after examining
the man's wound, which was fairly between the shoulders.

"'He may live a few hours, but there is no chance of his getting
better.'

"'Now,' I said, 'you may as well have a look at my wound, for the
villain stabbed me too.'

"'You have had a pretty narrow escape of it,' he said, as he examined
it. 'If he had struck an inch or two nearer the shoulder the knife would
have gone right into you; but you see I expect he was springing as he
struck, and the blow fell nearly perpendicularly, and it glanced down
over your ribs, and made a gash six inches long. There is no danger. I
will bandage it now, and tomorrow morning I will sew the edges together,
and make a proper job of it.'

"In the morning one of the hospital attendants came to me and said the
soldier who had been wounded wanted to speak to me. The doctor said he
would not live long. I went across to him. He was on a bed some little
distance from any of the others, for it was the healthy season, and
there were only three or four others in the tent.

"'I hear, Major Thorndyke,' he said in a low voice, 'that you killed
that fellow who gave me this wound, and that you yourself were stabbed.'

"'Mine is not a serious business, my man,' I said. 'I wish you had got
off as easily.'

"'I have been expecting it, sir,' he said; 'and how I came to be fool
enough to go outside the tent by myself I cannot think. I was uneasy,
and could not sleep; I felt hot and feverish, and came out for a breath
of fresh air. I will tell you what caused it, sir. About two years ago
a cousin of mine, in one of the King's regiments, who was dying, they
said, of fever (but I know the doctors thought he had been poisoned),
said to me, "Here are some things that will make your fortune if ever
you get to England; but I tell you beforehand, they are dangerous things
to keep about you. I fancy that they have something to do with my being
like this now. A year ago I went with some others into one of their
great temples on a feast day. Well, the god had got on all his trinkets,
and among them was a bracelet with the biggest diamonds I ever saw. I
did not think so much of it at the time, but I kept on thinking of them
afterwards, and it happened that some months after our visit we t