onel shook the man gently by the arm, and "Who are you?" said
he.

There was no answer. The man stared round the mess room and smiled in
the colonel's face. Little Mildred, who was always more of a woman
than a man till "Boot and saddle" was sounded, repeated the question
in a voice that would have drawn confidences from a geyser. The man
only smiled. Dirkovitch, at the far end of the table, slid gently from
his chair to the floor, No son of Adam, in this present imperfect
world, can mix the Hussars' champagne with the Hussars' brandy by five
and eight glasses of each without remembering the pit whence he has
been digged and descending thither. The band began to play the tune
with which the White Hussars, from the date of their formation,
preface all their functions. They would sooner be disbanded than
abandon that tune. It is a part of their system. The man straightened
himself in his chair and drummed on the table with his fingers.

"I don't see why we should entertain lunatics," said the colonel;
"call a guard and send him off to the cells. We'll look into the
business in the morning. Give him a glass of wine first, though."

Little Mildred filled a sherry glass with the brandy and thrust it
over to the man. He drank, and the tune rose louder, and he
straightened himself yet more. Then he put out his long-taloned hands
to a piece of plate opposite and fingered it lovingly. There was a
mystery connected with that piece of plate in the shape of a spring,
which converted what was a seven-branched candlestick, three springs
each side and one on the middle, into a sort of wheel-spoke
candelabrum[16]. He found the spring, pressed it, and laughed weakly.
He rose from his chair and inspected a picture on the wall, then moved
on to another picture, the mess watching him without a word.

When he came to the mantelpiece he shook his head and seemed
distressed. A piece of plate representing a mounted hussar in full
uniform caught his eye. He pointed to it, and then to the mantelpiece,
with inquiry in his eyes.

"What is it--oh, what is it?" said Little Mildred. Then, as a mother
might speak to a child, "That is a horse--yes, a horse."

Very slowly came the answer, in a thick, passionless guttural: "Yes,
I--have seen. But--where is _the_ horse?"

You could have heard the hearts of the mess beating as the men drew
back to give the stranger full room in his wanderings. There was no
question of calling the guard.

Again he