"So I hear you are going to sneak my job, old boy?"

"I shall hand it back to you with the utmost pleasure, Bob, as you can
well guess. But tell me how it is you are here at all."

Charteris assumed a deeply sententious manner. "You are not wholly
unacquainted with the literature of our vivacious kindred across the
Atlantic, I believe, Hal? Well, do you know the expression 'playing
possum'? because that's what I did. I got a glancing bullet across my
forehead, where this imposing scar is, just here, which stunned me at
first, and must have made a ghastly-looking wound, but the
unconsciousness didn't last more than a minute or two. At least,
that's what I gather from seeing my precious Darwanis in full flight
when I got the blood out of my eyes. Their way of conducting a retreat
was always to fire a volley and then run away helter-skelter, and
though I had been teaching them better manners, I always knew they
would break if I wasn't there to stiffen them. I was a good deal
knocked about, besides the wound on the head, and before I could manage
to roll into the bushes, Sher Singh's men were back. I thought it well
to appear more dead than I was, especially when I saw them going round
and finishing off all our wounded that they could find. They were in a
great hurry, and I gathered that your men had driven them off, and they
felt it advisable to make themselves scarce. I was in full view,
unluckily, and expected to get the _coup de grace_ every moment, but
when they came to me they took me up without troubling to see whether I
was alive or not, and threw me over a horse. It was not what you would
call a luxurious mode of travelling, and twice I managed to drop off,
feet first, hoping they would leave me lying where I was and go on in
disgust. They were disgusted--highly, but their remarks made it clear
that Sher Singh had ordered you and me to be brought in dead or alive,
preferably alive, so I condescended to exhibit signs of life, and they
hoisted me up behind one of them. That was an uncommon disagreeable
ride, I can tell you."

"I started to come back and look for you, Bob, but I couldn't get far
enough."

"Of course you couldn't. Why, this alone"--he touched the sling of
Gerrard's broken arm--"shows that you were much worse hurt than I was.
But I was pretty well done for, and a most gruesome object, when we
came up with Sher Singh. His manners ain't exactly ingratiating at the
best of times, as yo