to shatter the charm of
that delightful terror. Then of a sudden the town roared and shook to
a twofold rattle of the skins and the shrill of fifes as the corps
from the north, forced by their jocular Colonel to a night march, swept
through the arches and wheeled upon the grassy esplanade. Was it a trick
of the soldier who in youth had danced in the ken in Madrid that he
should thus startle the hosts of his regiment, and that passing through
the town, he should for a little make his men move like ghosts, saying
no word to any one of the aghast natives, but moving mechanically in the
darkness to the rattle of the drums? The drums, the drums, the drums!
Gilian stood entranced as they passed, looming large and innumerable in
the darkness, unchallenged and uncheered by the bewildered citizens. It
was the very entrance he could have chosen. For now they were ghosts,
legions of the air in borrowed boots of the earth, shades of some army
cut down in swathes and pitted in the fashion of the Cornal's bloodiest
stories. And now they were the foreign invader, dumb because they did
not know the native language, pitying this doomed community but moving
in to strike it at the vitals.

CHAPTER XII--ILLUSION

He followed them to the square, still with the drums pounding and the
fifes shrilling, and now the town was awake in every window. At a word
the Colonel on his horse dispelled the illusion. "Halt!" he cried; the
drum and fife ceased, the arms grounded, the soldiers clamoured for
their billets. Over the hill of Strone the morning paled, out of
the gloom the phantom body came a corps most human, thirsty, hungry,
travel-strained.

Gilian ran home and found the household awake but unconscious of the
great doings in the town.

"What!" cried the Cornal, when he heard the news. "They came here this
morning and this is the first we have of it." He was in a fever of
annoyance. "Dugald, Dugald, are you hearing? The Army's in the town, it
moved in when we were snoring and only the boy heard it. I hope Jiggy
Crawford does not make it out a black affront to him that we were not
there to welcome him. My uniform, Mary, my uniform, it should be aired
and ironed, and here at my hand, and I'll warrant it's never out of the
press yet. It was the boy that heard the drums; it was you that heard
the drums, Gilian. Curse me, but I believe you'll make a soger yet!"

For the next few days, Gilian felt he must indeed be the soldier the
Paymaste