"So are we all," Tony responded; and voice and face would have told me, if I hadn't guessed before, that he was either keeping back something of grave importance, or else carefully lying. "Will he really be all right again in a few days?" the dear little lady went on. "Er--perhaps not all right, but--nothing to worry about," said Tony, with lumbering cheerfulness. "He's in no danger of death, anyhow, that's one good thing." "What about Major Vandyke?" I heard myself say; and even as the question came, I wondered why I should have thought of it in that connection. But somehow it would out, and only my subconscious self, far down in mysterious depths, knew the reason. "Oh, Major Vandyke! Why, as it happens, he went over to the other side of the river in his motor car--on business." A flame of suspicion in me was lit by that match. "To _Mexico_!" I exclaimed. "But I was told only this very day, by Captain March, that no officer or soldier was allowed to cross the river on any pretext whatever." "That was--is--so, in an ordinary way," Tony admitted, swallowing heavily again. "But you see that fearful row on the hill where the guns are might--must have set a hornet's nest buzzing over there. The chaps were likely to think we were potting at _them_--out of a clear sky, and--er--they might have begun potting back at us in a minute or two, in their excitement. So, to save the situation, Vandyke scooted across with only his orderly--who's his chauffeur, too--in his own car with some sort of white flag rigged up in a jiffy. I expect he'll get a lot of credit for that dash when the story--I mean the facts, are out." "It _was_ a brave thing to do!" cried Mrs. Dalziel, always delighted to praise any one. "He must have risked his life." "Yes," said Tony, "no doubt of that. The Mexican bridge sentries might have fired on him in spite of the white flag. They--they did fire, I believe. But Vandyke's all right, anyhow." "You speak as if some one wasn't." I heard myself talking, though I seemed not to have spoken the words deliberately. "Only the orderly, poor chap. He was driving the car. I guess the sentries saw him before they saw the white flag." "They shot him?" "Yes, unfortunately they did." Tony's voice broke a little, and that struck me as odd; for he could not have had any personal interest, it seemed, in Major Vandyke's chauffeur-orderly. "I hope they didn't kill the poor fellow?" purred Mrs. Dalziel. "I don't think he's dead yet, mater, but I'm afraid he's past speaking. They got him in the lungs." "Major Vandyke's come back, then," I said.