ficers
in belted tunics and slouched hats,--but apparently not the same men;
the half lounging ease and lazy dandyism gone, a grim tension in all
their faces, a set abstraction in all their acts. Then there was the
rolling of heavy wheels in the road, and the two horses of the ambulance
appeared. The sentries presented arms; the colonel took off his hat;
the officers uncovered; the wagon wheeled into the parade; the surgeon
stepped out. He exchanged a single word with the colonel, and lifted the
curtain of the ambulance.

As the colonel glanced within, a deep but embarrassed voice fell
upon his ear. He turned quickly. It was Lord Reginald, flushed and
sympathetic.

"He was a friend,--a relation of ours, you know," he stammered. "My
sister would like--to look at him again."

"Not now," said the colonel in a low voice. The surgeon added something
in a voice still lower, which scarcely reached the veranda.

Lord Reginald turned away with a white face.

"Fall back there!" Captain Fleetwood rode up.

"All ready, sir."

"One moment, captain," said the colonel quietly. "File your first half
company before that ambulance, and bid the men look in."

The singular order was obeyed. The men filed slowly forward, each in
turn halting before the motionless wagon and its immobile freight. They
were men inured to frontier bloodshed and savage warfare; some halted
and hurried on; others lingered, others turned to look again. One man
burst into a short laugh, but when the others turned indignantly upon
him, they saw that in his face that held them in awe. What they saw in
the ambulance did not transpire; what they felt was not known. Strangely
enough, however, what they repressed themselves was mysteriously
communicated to their horses, who snorted and quivered with eagerness
and impatience as they rode back again. The horse of the trooper who
had laughed almost leaped into the air. Only Sergeant Cassidy was
communicative; he took a larger circuit in returning to his place, and
managed to lean over and whisper hoarsely in the ear of a camp follower
spectator, "Tell the young leddy that the torturin' divvils couldn't
take the smile off him!"

The little column filed out of the gateway into the road. As Captain
Fleetwood passed Colonel Carter the two men's eyes met. The colonel said
quietly, "Good night, captain. Let us have a good report from you."

The captain replied only with his gauntleted hand against the brim of
his slo