nding, as I wish to carry out the rest of the
mission with which you entrusted me."

"By all means, do so if you wish it," the duke said. "Colonel
Crofton's regiment will start at nine o'clock tomorrow morning,
and you may accompany it. On the road it will overtake one of our
regiments from Toledo."

Chapter 16: Captured.

"I have a job for you, Mike."

"What is it, your honour?"

"I want you to take off all the marks of a field officer from my
clothes. I am going to be a captain again."

Mike looked with surprise at his master.

"Well, your honour, it is ungrateful bastes they must be. Sure I
thought that the least they could do was to make you a full major,
though if they had made you a colonel, it would be no more than
you deserve."

"I was offered the majority, Mike, but I declined it. It would be
absurd, at my age, to have such a rank, and I should be ashamed to
look officers of our brigade, who have done nigh twenty years of
good service and are still only captains, in the face. I would
much rather remain as I am."

"Well, it may be you are right, sir, but it is disappointed I am,
entirely."

"You will get over it, Mike," Desmond laughed.

"That may be," Mike said doubtfully, "but I should have felt
mighty proud of being a colonel's servant."

"I don't suppose you will ever be that, Mike. You know that, after
the last war was over, several of the Irish regiments were
disbanded, and no doubt it will be the same when this war is
finished, so you could not count upon seeing me a colonel, at any
rate not for another twenty years."

"Ah, your honour, I hope we shall be back in old Ireland years
before that!"

"I hope so, too, Mike. I have only been out here for two years,
and yet I am beginning to feel that I should like a quieter life.
No doubt the loss of my hand has something to do with that, but I
would give up, willingly, all chance of ever becoming a colonel,
if I could but settle down in the old country, though I fear there
is very little chance of that."

"But sure there may be fighting there, too, your honour," Mike
said; "and if King James goes across the water, there is sure to
be divarsion that way."

"I hope not, Mike. It is not that I do not feel as loyal as ever
to the cause of the Stuarts, but if they cannot come to their own
without Ireland being again deluged with blood, I would rather
they would stay away. Twice Ireland has suffered for the Stuarts:
first, when Cromwell