and drank.

"May a parched man claim a drink of your wine?" Tim cried.

"Give what you have, ask what you need. That is the De Gamelyn code of
law," said the man, and handed Tim the flagon.

"You are cheerful, sir," said Tim, his blood somewhat warmed by the
wine. "In the name of the devil, who are you, and of what country?"

"My name is Nigel De Gamelyn. My Mother, dear soul, was French. My
father was wise enough to be an Irishman. So much for my blood, which
unites happily the practical and the dreamer fluids. I am of no country
but I know all places from the King's tombs at Rome to the old inns that
stand about the upper Arun. I have marched with armies over this
territory aforetime. There is no shadow, I believe, on my soul, has such
strength in him as I, and I rest content to be nothing to myself and all
things to every man. That being bliss."

As the bowman spoke, a bullet kicked up a cloud of dust at his feet.

"Hola, by my hilt! it is time that we were stirring," he said. "Leave
these fellows to grovel and remove yourself. Follow: who follows Nigel
de Gamelyn?" He hitched up his belt and strode forward with his great
bow, and Tim saw him send a shaft with a twanging noise five hundred and
thirty paces. One of the German officers, towering above the other men,
stood out distinctly, and then he dropped.

"I'd like to take a look at that knave," the bowman remarked, drawing a
fresh arrow from his sheaf. "By the twang of string! I'll swear I
drilled him clean between his eyes."

The enemy were getting closer now, and from the men lying around them
broke a violent fusillade. It was quite useless, but it relieved their
nerves. Some were discharging their shots into the turf a few yards in
front of them. Others were shooting at aeroplanes.

Then suddenly there came upon Tim a great anger. A bullet striking him
brought him to his senses, and he saw the men sprawling belly-flat about
him. This was not war, this ignominious crawling, this grovelling in the
soil, this halting! The spirit of his fathers spoke to him. He
remembered one of his father's favourite sayings: "The duty of a man of
the line is to fight, and if needs be, die, not to avoid dying." His
anger grew--"damn them for a pack of cringing, footling cowards: he, Tim
Gamelyn, descendant of the De Gamelyns who fought in a hundred battles,
would teach them how men of his father's house went into battle."

A senior officer called on those nearest to Tim