o rescue me," I thought.
"Brace would come fast enough," I added spitefully, "if I were a gun."

This idea seemed so comic in its disagreeable tone, and so thoroughly
due to my state of weakness and unreason, that I laughed silently.

"How precious ill-tempered I am!" I said to myself.

A moment later I was wondering about the fate of those dear to me at
Nussoor--whether my father was still there, and whether there had been
any rising in his neighbourhood.

Directly after I came to the conclusion that his regiment would
certainly have been called away, and I hoped that he had made
arrangements for my mother and sister to go back to England; and then I
was marvelling at the rapid way in which my thoughts ran excitedly from
one subject to the other.

"It is all through being so weak, I suppose," I said to myself; and then
I began eagerly to listen, for I could hear trampling.

Feeling certain that it was the rajah, and making up my mind to speak
quietly to him, and ask him to try and exchange me for some other
prisoner, I lay with my eyes fixed upon the open side of the tent, to
see directly after the tall, stately figure of the grey-bearded
physician, who came to my side in his customary sedate fashion, and
knelt down to examine and dress my injuries, which he declared to be in
a perfectly satisfactory state. But, all the same, they pained me a
great deal during the time he was unbandaging and covering them afresh.

I plied him with questions all the time--as to how long it would be
before I was well; how soon I might sit up; how soon I might go out in a
palanquin, and the like; all of which he answered in the same grave way,
but when I turned the question to the state of the country, and asked
for information about our troop, and the late battle, he shook his head
and smiled gravely.

"I am the rajah's physician," he said, "and my duties are with the sick.
I can tell you no more."

"But tell me this," I said eagerly; "where are our people now?"

"I only know about my own people," he replied, with a smile. "You are
one of them, and you are troubling your brain about matters that you
cannot deal with now, so be at rest."

I made an impatient gesture, and he laid his hand upon my brow, saying
gently--

"Be at rest. You will learn all these things in time. You have but one
duty now--to get well."

There was only one other resource left to me--to get an answer somehow
from the rajah when he came; and upo