steed and his sword and his lady the
peerless. Or, rather, he was like him in one respect--he did care for
his lady the peerless. But otherwise Captain Oisin Sarrasin resembled in
no wise the traditional soldier of fortune, the Dugald Dalgetty, the
Condottiere, the 'Heaven's Swiss' even. Captain Sarrasin was terribly in
earnest, and would not lend the aid of his bright sword to any cause
which he did not believe to be the righteous cause, and, owing to the
nervous peculiarities of his organisation, it was generally the way of
Captain Sarrasin to regard the weaker cause as the righteous cause. That
was his ruling inclination. When he entered as a volunteer the Federal
ranks in the great American war, he knew very well that he was entering
on the side of the stronger. He was not blinded in the least, as so many
Englishmen were, by the fact that in the first instance the Southerners
won some battles. He knew the country from end to end, and he knew
perfectly well what must be the outcome of such a struggle. But then he
went in to fight for the emancipation of the negroes, and he knew that
they were the weakest of all the parties engaged in the controversy, and
so he struck in for them.

He was a man of about forty-eight years of age, and some six feet in
height. He was handsome, strong, and sinewy--all muscles and flesh, and
no fat. He had a deep olive complexion and dark-brown hair and
eyes--eyes that in certain lights looked almost black.

He was a silent man habitually, but given anything to talk about in
which he felt any interest and he could talk on for ever.

Unlike the ordinary soldier of fortune, he was not in the least
thrasonical. He hardly ever talked of himself--he hardly ever told
people of where he had been and what campaigns he had fought in. He
looked soldierly; but the soldier in him did not really very much
overbear the demeanour of the quiet, ordinary gentleman. At the moment
he is a leader-writer on foreign subjects for a daily newspaper in
London, and is also retained on the staff in order that he may give
advice as to the meaning of names and places and allusions in late
foreign telegrams. There is a revolution, say, in Burmah or Patagonia,
and a late telegram comes in and announces in some broken-kneed words
the bare fact of the crisis. Then the editor summons Captain Sarrasin,
and Sarrasin quietly explains:--'Oh, yes, of course; I knew that was
coming this long time. The man at the head of affai