I? I was just in the
nick of time, too.'

'This is twice you've saved my life,' I said.

'That's nothing,' was his reply. 'I have found more than life.'

I looked at him curiously. His clothes were torn and caked with mud;
here and there I saw they were soaked with blood. His face looked
haggard and drawn, too, but in his eyes was such a look as I had never
seen before. The old wistfulness and yearning were gone; he no longer
had the appearance of a man grieving because he had lost his past.
Joy, realization of something wonderful, a great satisfaction, all
revealed themselves in his eyes, as he looked at me.

'His memory has come back,' I said to myself.

I did not think of what had become of him on the night I had dined with
Springfield and St. Mabyn, that was not worth troubling about. His
past had come back, and evidently it was a joyous past, a past which
gave all sorts of promises for the future!

'I have great things to tell you!' he cried excitedly.

CHAPTER XI

EDGECUMBE'S STORY

But my new-found strength was only fitful. He had barely spoken the
words, when I heard a great noise in my ears, and I knew that my senses
were becoming dim again. I heard other voices, too, and looking up I
saw my own colonel standing near, with three or four others near him.
And then I have a faint recollection of hearing Paul Edgecumbe telling
him what had taken place. I know, too, that I was angry at his
description. He was telling of the part I had taken in the struggle in
glowing colours, while keeping his own part in it in the background. I
was trying to tell the colonel this, when everything became black.

When I came to myself again, I was in a rest-station behind the lines.
I remember feeling very sore, and my head was aching badly, but no
bones were broken. I could move my limbs, although with difficulty; I
felt as though every inch of my body had been beaten with big sticks.
Still, my mind was clear, I was able to think coherently, and to recall
the scenes through which I had passed.

I lay for some minutes wishing I could hear news of what was going on,
when a brother officer came to me.

'Hullo, Luscombe, awake? That's right. You've had a rough time; you
were lucky to get out of it so well.'

'I am in the dark about everything,' I said. 'Tell me what has
happened.'

He mistook my meaning, and replied with a laugh:

'Oh, you were saved by that chap who took thirty Boches British
pr