ir, until the last moment."

"Don't like to? No sir, I know d--d well you don't like to obey this or
any other order I ever gave, and wherever you find a loop-hole through
which to crawl, and you think you can sneak off unpunished, by ----,
sir, I suppose you will go on disobeying orders. Shut up, sir! not a
d--d word!" for tears of mortification were starting to O'Grady's eyes,
and with flushing face and trembling lip the soldier stood helplessly
before his troop-commander, and was striving to say a word in further
explanation.

"Go and get your side-lines at once and bring them here; go at once,
sir," shouted the captain; and with a lump in his throat the trooper
saluted, faced about, and walked away.

"He's milder-mannered than usual, d--n him!" said the captain, turning
towards his subaltern, who had stood a silent and pained witness of the
scene. "He knows he is in the wrong and has no excuse; but he'll break
out yet. Come! step out, you O'Grady!" he yelled after the
rapidly-walking soldier. "Double time, sir. I can't wait here all
night." And Mr. Billings noted that silence had fallen on the bivouac so
full of soldier-chaff and laughter but a moment before, and that the men
of both troops were intently watching the scene already so painful to
him.

Obediently O'Grady took up the "dog-trot" required of him, got his
side-lines, and, running back, knelt beside his horse, and with
trembling hands adjusted them, during which performance Captain Buxton
stood over him, and, in a tone that grew more and more that of a bully
as he lashed himself up into a rage, continued his lecture to the man.

The latter finally rose, and, with huge beads of perspiration starting
out on his forehead, faced his captain.

"May I say a word, sir?" he asked.

"You may now; but be d--d careful how you say it," was the reply, with a
sneer that would have stung an abject slave into a longing for revenge,
and that grated on Mr. Billings's nerves in a way that made him clinch
his fists and involuntarily grit his teeth. Could it be that O'Grady
detected it? One quick, wistful, half-appealing glance flashed from the
Irishman's eyes towards the subaltern, and then, with evident effort at
composure, but with a voice that trembled with the pent-up sense of
wrong and injustice, O'Grady spoke:

"Indeed, sir, I had no thought of neglecting orders. I always care for
my horse; but it wasn't sunset when the captain came out----"

"Not sunset!" br