THE SEED OF EMPIRE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16123, 11 January 1916, Page 3

THE SEED OF EMPIRE.

, —- — — t ,.* Bi' FRED. M. WHITE, Author ol " The Day." " The better Ml'il- * c? 8 ' * " '^ le Corner House." " Tho Blare of Silence/* " CraTcn Fortune," Ike Scales of Justice," etc., etc*

r ~~~~ (COPYRIGHT.) [ < 1 CHAPTER XX. ' i - , IN" CLOVER. Oixi.T.R lay nt full length in his bed gazing dreamily at the, ceiling and trying to reconstruct his sheltered universe and bring the world intq, proper focus. He had not the least notion where he was, and there was still -enough of the casual le!t> i in him to rentier him utterly indifferent so far as that fras concerned. At any rate > he was alive, . and that was something to go oil withy Just far a moment when lie . was lilted, out of the ambulance a whii£ of consciocsness had come to him, and he had realised that lie was amongst friendsHe had grasped the fact, too, that he was j entirely out of his element, and that he was ip,- contact, 'with a class of people who had Aifeherto been outside his social outloo/; hence his profuse apologies for the trouble he was causing. , Tie had been looking into a pair of friendly eves, blue-grey eyes full -of sweet(l 1 ess and sympathy; be had been listening ♦<> a voice, very sympathetic: and then jj gentle hands had lifted him from the Red 3 >' Gross waggon and he had been placed in a cool white bed. Then a man was looking down at him, a keen-faced nian with a humorous smile and a ppir of, hands so i gen lie that Ginger could scarcely feel them. Aw somewhere in the distance a voice - I was speaking, and Ginger rather gathered I that he himself was the object of a dis- | cussion. 8 "I think he'll do now." the voice said, jj "fl>e poor fellow has evidently been in I great pain; in fact, he is now, only |j he is too exhausted to show any restlessness. What did you say? Yes, through the thigh and through the lungs. But he is going on quite all right. I think I'll ?j just give him a touch of morphia to dull v the pain, and then all he -wants for soma hours is complete rest. After that, regu- " lar food and careful nursing will represent y bis cure. I think that is all I can say for the present, Miss Kemp."' 7 The name seemed to strike a familiar a chord in Ginger s mind, and in his dreamv mood he wondered where bo had heard it before. He did not know that for many hours now that ho had been racked with pain, lie did not even know whether he ; wß® conscious or not, and his brain was ; asking him questions that he could not . answer. Then a hand touched his "wrist. There was a prick, as if a needle had . stabbed him, and the pain vanished in some heavenly mysterious -way thai left Ginger like a child who has fallen asleep in the shade on a summer afternoon. Jte slipped, into a kind of heaven, the semicelestial paradise that morphia brings, especially when it- has been administered - 1 lor ®*e first time. And after that Ginger , slept contentedly and sweetly for manv ' hear rs. The light was beginning to fail as ha i same back to himself, still in the Earns ■ 'nappy condition, go -that he lay on his ' back gazing upwards, and gradually, verv i t! gradually, he began to realise the fact J that his name was Ginger Smiff and that j he was a soldier of the King who a week, I or ;i month, hack, or perhaps even yesterI d'<y, was fighting for his country away in| j franco with his friends about him. _ j But where was he? And how had all " I this happened? His mind crept back inch J by inch until out of the mist the picture - I began to grow less muddy and indistinct. Here was Ginger behind Harold Bentley and Ronald Kemp, together with a man called Allen and another called Garten, working their way out of a wood behind a battery of guns and ammunition waggons which had been rescued from a horde of * Germans in the neighbourhood of a farm* house, and. oddly, all of them were wear- . ing the uniforms of German Uhlans; why this was. Ginger could not in the least? understand. Then into the vision came a trench, a battered trench, blown almost out of recognition, and inside it a hundred or so of men in khaki who crowded round the guns with cheers and yells. And after this, hundreds and hundreds of Germans charging down into the trench, evident!v expecting an easy prey, and on the top * of this the roar of the guns and shells bursting into the ranks of the foe at almost, l>oint-blank range. This seemed to go on hour after hour until the Germans melted away into heaps of blue-grey refuse lying on the open fields and somebody was say- , ing that it was a narrow* squeak tor there . were not- more than a dozen shells left. Then the vision changed again; the guns had been blown tip and dismantled, and , a handful of Musketeers in Uhlan uni- : form were bursting through a German • patrol and dashing along a road where ' someone said that 'the British rearguard were only a mile or two away. Then it seemed to Ginger that something struck him between the shoulders and ho rolled cflt the horse which ho had been riding and lay there on the hard read looking up at the frosty stars. Followed a long blank, and then a contused vision of himself lying on a heap of , straw in a charcoal-burner's hut with an , old man bending over him and holding a bottle to Ins lips. The man was telling Ginger in broken English that the Musketeers had got clear away and then he ' himself had seen them safely into the British line?. After tins came a long dream of pain and some delusion as to a cart in which he had been placed and hidden under a thick covering of straw. Then in time he bad heard the Bugles again and old familiar voice?, and somebody was lifting him into a train. After that, the rumble of engines, and the smell of salt water, and now this. < Consciousness was coming back, so that Ginger's eye gradually cleared and he could look around him. He could see a big room in which were some twenty beds? he could see women moving about, nurses in hospital dress, and every now and then he heard a groan of pain from one of the adjacent beds. One- of the nurses attracted his attention. She was tall and slim, with a pleasant smile upon her face: she had grey-blue eyes and the fading light glistened on her fair hair. On the walls were pictures and panels of silk here and there with little ornaments on brackets. ' I'm in 'orspital, I am,'' Ginger told himself. *''Ope it ain't a German one: not that there's much the mater wif it • if it is. But that angel over yonder ain't no German An' it I ain't seen er before, call me a Dutchman. I've seen 'er playing co';'. Traps she'll come an' speak ter me presently." Ginger turned over on one side and coughed. He was pleasantly surprised to find that the exertion gave him no pain': I he last time Ids cough was troublesome it had racked him through and through with a physical anguish that brought out the I perspiration all over him. But he was > still under the spell of the powerful drug : that deadened every physical sense while J it still left his brain clear and active. j A moment or two later the pretty nurse j approached Ginger's bedside. She bent over him smiling. "How are you feeling now?" she asked. "Much as if I'd stepped stright into "eaven." Ginger said. "I s'pofe they got me all right ; not- as T remembcr's" anvthin' abaht it. 'Ow did I get 'ere, miss!" "You came here by train," Dorothy said. • I <To Tie continued daily-1 *•". _-- '■'%