o his own country to enlist
them. Some he got willingly, and others by force. He promised he would
only take them to London, where the King wanted to review them, and then
let them go home. So they came, though they little liked it, and he was
marching them south. Now at night they reached a place where nobody
would have halted them except the Black Officer, for it was a great place
for ghosts. And they would have run away if they had dared, but they
were afraid of him. So some tried to sleep in threes and fours, and some
were afraid to sleep, and they sat up round the fire. But the Black
Officer, he went some way from the rest, and lay down beneath a tree.

"Now as the night wore on, and whiles it would be dark and whiles the
moon shone, a man came--they did not know from where--a big red man, and
drew up to the fire, and was talking with them. And he asked where the
Black Officer was, and they showed him. Now there was one man, Shamus
Mackenzie they called him, and he was very curious, and he must be seeing
what they did. So he followed the man, and saw him stoop and speak to
the officer, but he did not waken; then this individual took the Black
Officer by the breast and shook him violently. Then Shamus knew who the
stranger was, for no man alive durst have done as much to the Black
Officer. And there was the Black Officer kneeling to him!

"Well, what they said, Shamus could not hear, and presently they walked
away, and the Black Officer came back alone.

"He took them to England, but never to London, and they never saw the
King. He took them to Portsmouth, and they were embarked for India,
where we were fighting the French. There was a town we couldn't get
into" (Seringapatam?), "and the Black Officer volunteered to make a
tunnel under the walls. Now they worked three days, and whether it was
the French heard them and let them dig on, or not, any way, on the third
day the French broke in on them. They kept sending men into the tunnel,
and more men, and still they wondered who was fighting within, and how we
could have so large a party in the tunnel; so at last they brought
torches, and there was no man alive on our side but the Black Officer,
and he had a wall of corpses built up in front of him, and was fighting
across it. He had more light to see by than the French had, for it was
dark behind him, and there would be some light on their side. So at last
they brought some combustibles and blew it