ou going to
do?"

"Ah, what are we going to do?" said the young man sadly. "I was in
hopes that you would be so much better, or rather I hoped you might,
that we could creep along after dark and get back to our men; but I am
afraid--"

"So'm I," said the boy bitterly, as he tried to move himself a little,
and then sank back with a faint groan. "Couldn't do it, unless two of
our fellows got me in a sergeant's sash and carried me."

"I'd try and carry you on my back," said Pen, "if you could bear it."

"Couldn't," said the boy abruptly. "I say, where do you think our lads
are?"

"Beaten, perhaps taken prisoners," said Pen bitterly.

"Serve 'em right--cowards! To go and leave us behind like this!"

"Don't talk so much."

"Why?"

"It will make you feverish; and it's of no use to complain. They
couldn't help leaving us. Besides, I was not left."

"Then how come you to be here?" said the boy sharply.

"I came after you, to help you."

"More old stupid you! Didn't you know when you were safe?"

Pen raised his brows a little and looked half-perplexed, half-amused at
the irritable face of his comrade, who wrinkled up his forehead with
pain, drew a hard breath, and then whispered softly, "I say, comrade, I
oughtn't to have said that there, ought I?"

Pen was silent.

"You saw me go down, didn't you?"

Pen bowed his head.

"And you ran back to pick me up? Ah!" he ejaculated, drawing his breath
hard.

"Wound hurt you much, my lad?"

"Ye-es," said the lad, wincing; "just as if some one was boring a hole
through my shoulder with a red-hot ramrod."

"Punch, my lad, I don't think it's a bad wound, for while you were
asleep I looked, and found that it had stopped bleeding."

"Stopped? That's a good job; ain't it, comrade?"

"Yes; and with a healthy young fellow like you a wound soon begins to
heal up if the wounded man lies quiet."

"But I'm only a boy, private."

"Then the wound will heal all the more readily."

"I say, how do you know all this?" said the boy, looking at him
curiously.

"By reading."

"Reading! Ah, I can't read--not much; only little words. Well, then,
if you know that, I have got to lie still, then, till the hole's grown
up. I say, have you got that bullet safe?"

"Oh yes."

"Don't you lose it, mind, because I mean to keep that to show people at
home. Even if I am a boy I should like people to know that I have been
in the wars. So I have got to lie still and get w