in the voice of his own
captain, but in that of Captain Frazer who, as ranking officer, had
taken command of the fight into which chance had led him. Weldon's
every nerve answered to the tonic of that voice. Not since
Vlaakfontein had he been under its command. Nevertheless, the old
spell was upon him, and he responded to its call. An instant before,
the rush towards him had seemed indomitable. Those furious, fighting
horsemen could not be stayed in their course. Now he braced himself
for the shock of their coming, while tired hand and blurring eye
roused themselves to do the bidding of his brain. He was dimly aware
that Paddy had struggled forward to his other side and, shoulder to
shoulder with him, was helping to beat back the iron-like force
pressing down upon them. Then, with the keen grasp of trifling
detail which often marks the supreme moment of mental exhaustion, he
became conscious that the hairy tail which brushed across his face
was unduly coarse and tangled, while a sudden cheer from around him
told that the Boers were turning in flight.

Dazed, he drew his hand across his face, and stared wonderingly at
the scarlet drops on his fingers. Then he turned and looked down at
Paddy with a whimsical, questioning smile. Paddy repeated his query.

"Are you hurt, little one?" he demanded, for the second time, as he
shook Weldon's arm.

Weldon steadied at the touch.

"No; only scratched a bit. It is nothing to last at all. Are you all
right?"

Paddy shut his hand over a shattered finger.

"Glory be! And the snakes of Boers is wriggling off to their holes.
And now, where's the Captain?"

They found him a little apart from the line, slightly to the front
and close beside a scattered heap of bearded men. His face was white
and the lines of his face were rigid and drawn; but he hailed them
just as he always had been used to do.

"My luck has changed," he added quietly. "They have taken my leg,
this time. Still, it's not so very painful. I'll fill my pipe first,
and then will you two fellows help me back, till we can find an
ambulance?"

CHAPTER NINETEEN

In a quiet corner of the crowded hospital at Johannesburg, one
narrow bed was screened away from its neighbors. Beside the bed sat
Ethel Dent, and Weldon leaned against the wall beyond. Both of them
were smiling bravely down into the dark-fringed blue eyes which met
their eyes with a steady wishfulness. With the end so plain in
sight, why keep up