I had failed to save her, but at least I could avenge her.

That bullet was mine, and had you not stumbled over a Pandy's body, I suppose, just as I pulled my trigger, you would have been a dead man.
"I did not know that I had failed, and, rushing forward with my company, was in the thickest of the fight.

I wanted to be killed, but no shot struck me, and at last, when chasing a Pandy along a passage in the Kaiser Bagh, he turned and levelled his piece at me.
Mine was loaded, and I could have shot him down as he turned, but I stood and let him have his shot.

When I found myself here I was sorry that he had not finished me at once, but when I heard that you were alive, and likely to recover, I thanked him in my heart that he had left me a few more days of life, that I could let you know that it was I who had fired, and that Martha's wrong had not been wholly unavenged." He sank back exhausted on to the pillow.

Frank Mallett had made no attempt to interrupt him: the sudden agony of his wound and his astonishment at this strange accusation had given him so grave a shock that he leaned against the wall behind him in silent wonder.
"Hello! Mallett, what the deuce is the matter with you ?" the surgeon exclaimed, as, looking up from a patient over whom he was bending a short distance away, his eyes fell on the officer's face.
"You look as if you were going to faint, man.
"Here, orderly, some brandy and water, quickly!" Frank drank some of the brandy and water and sat down for a few minutes.