family cause pleaded in this way. "It's sick to death I am of Master
Richard and his escapades. He can get himself out of this mess, or he
can stay in it."

"You mean that you'll not lift a hand to help him."

"Devil a finger," said O'Moy.

And Tremayne, looking straight into the adjutant's faintly smouldering
blue eyes, beheld there a fierce and rancorous determination which
he was at a loss to understand, but which he attributed to something
outside his own knowledge that must lie between O'Moy and his
brother-in-law.

"I am sorry," he said gravely. "Since that is how you feel, it is to
be hoped that Dick Butler may not survive to be taken. The alternative
would weigh so cruelly upon Una that I do not care to contemplate it."

"And who the devil asks you to contemplate it?" snapped O'Moy. "I am not
aware that it is any concern of yours at all."

"My dear O'Moy!" It was an exclamation of protest, something between
pain and indignation, under the stress of which Tremayne stepped
entirely outside of the official relations that prevailed between
himself and the adjutant. And the exclamation was accompanied by such a
look of dismay and wounded sensibilities that O'Moy, meeting this, and
noting the honest manliness of Tremayne's bearing and countenance; was
there and then the victim of reaction. His warm-hearted and impulsive
nature made him at once profoundly ashamed of himself. He stood up,
a tall, martial figure, and his ruggedly handsome, shaven countenance
reddened under its tan. He held out a hand to Tremayne.

"My dear boy, I beg your pardon. It's so utterly annoyed I am that the
savage in me will be breaking out. Sure, it isn't as if it were
only this affair of Dick's. That is almost the least part of the
unpleasantness contained in this dispatch. Here! In God's name, read it
for yourself, and judge for yourself whether it's in human nature to be
patient under so much."

With a shrug and a smile to show that he was entirely mollified, Captain
Tremayne took the papers to his desk and sat down to con them. As he
did so his face grew more and more grave. Before he had reached the end
there was a tap at the door. An orderly entered with the announcement
that Dom Miguel Forjas had just driven up to Monsanto to wait upon the
adjutant-general.

"Ha!" said O'Moy shortly, and exchanged a glance with his secretary.
"Show the gentleman up."

As the orderly withdrew, Tremayne came over and placed the dispatch on
th