reat Windlass Battery, no fewer than eleven
guns of the same calibre--had grinned defiance at the ships of France.
To-day the grass grew on their empty platforms, the nettles sprouted
from their angles ... and the Commandant--what was he doing here?

I fear the answer may provoke a smile. He was drawing his pay.

The guns, the garrison, were gone these five years; but by some
oversight of the War Office neither the Commandant nor his two
sergeants had been retired. Regularly, month by month, his pay-sheet
had been accepted; regularly the full amount had been handed to him by
Mr. Fossell, agent at Garland Town for Messrs. Curtis' Bank on the
mainland. Clearly there was a mistake somewhere, and often enough his
conscience smote him, urging that he ought, in honour, to call
attention to it. He was defrauding the Government, and, through the
Government, the taxpayer.

Yes; conscience put this plainly enough, and he felt it to be
unanswerable. But if he obeyed conscience and published the
mistake--good Heavens! what would happen to him? Already, three years
ago, the Lord Proprietor had resumed the shipping dues which had made
so welcome an addition to his income. On the strength of them he had
made a too liberal allowance to his brother's widow; and now to
maintain it he was driven to deny himself all but the barest necessary
expenses. Yet how could he cut it down? The two girls were growing up.
Their mother had sent them to a costly school. As it was, her letters
burdened him with complaints of her poverty: for she was a peevish,
grasping woman--poor soul!

Again, if he published the mistake, he impoverished not himself only
but his two sergeants: and Treacher was a married man. He often drugged
his conscience with this. But his conscience, being healthy, was soon
awake and tormenting him.

It humiliated him, too. Government, which sent him his full pay, never
sent him stores, ammunition, or clothing for his men. He wanted no
ammunition; but his men needed clothing--and he dared not ask for it.
Their uniforms were (as Miss Gabriel had more than once pointedly
asserted in his hearing) a scandal to the Islands. Moreover, the price
of hens' eggs ruling high in Garland Town, he had discovered that
gulls' eggs made a tolerable substitute. It was in scrambling after
gulls' eggs for his Commanding Officer that Sergeant Archelaus had
ruined his small-clothes.... And now you know why in the course of his
discussion with Sergea