MARIQUITA’S QUEST.

Hyde’s unfortunate affair with the sailor had ended in a broken rib and a dislocated arm.  He was taken back senseless to the camp of the Royal Picts, and for some days required the closest care.  It was nearly a week before he so far recovered himself as to be able to give any account of what had occurred, and longer before he remembered accurately what was taking him to headquarters at the time of the accident.

It flashed across him quite suddenly, and with something of a shock, that while he lay there helpless his friend McKay was still in danger.

“When shall I be able to get about again?” he asked the doctor, anxiously.

“You won’t be fit for duty, if that’s what you’re driving at, for many a long day to come.”

“I can go about with my arm in a sling.  I am beginning to feel perfectly well otherwise.”

“What’s the good of a soldier with his arm in a sling?  No:  as soon as you are fit to move I shall have you sent down to Scutari.”

“But I don’t want to go:  I had much rather stay here with the old corps.”

He was thinking of the business he had still in hand.

“You will have to obey orders, anyhow, so make up your mind to go.”

The regimental surgeon of the Royal Picts was a morose old Scotchman, very obstinate and intolerant of opposition.  What he said he stuck to, and Hyde knew that he must prepare to leave the Crimea in a short time, probably before he was strong enough to go in person to headquarters and find out McKay.

It would be necessary, therefore, to find some other messenger, and, after considering what was best to be done, he resolved to beg Colonel Blythe to come and see him, intending to make him his confidant.

“Well, Rupert,” said the Colonel—­they were alone together—­“this is a bad business.  Macinlay tells me you won’t be fit for duty for months.  He is going to send you at once before a medical board.”

“It is very aggravating, Colonel, as I particularly wished to be here for the next few weeks.

“To be in at the death, I suppose?  We are bound to take the place at the next attack.”

“I hope you may.  But it is not that.  Our friend McKay is in imminent danger.”

“What is the nature of the danger?”

“He is pursued by the relentless hate of an infamous woman:  one who has never yet spared any who dared to thwart or oppose her.”

“What on earth do you mean, Hyde?” The colonel thought the old sergeant was wandering in his mind.  “There are no women out here except Mother Charcoal, and a few French vivandieres.  How can any of them threaten McKay?”

“It is as I say, colonel.  By-and-by I will tell you everything.  But let me implore you to find out McKay at once and bring him to me.  I cannot, you see, go to him.”

“Is this very urgent?”

“A matter of life and death, I assure you.”