o rise he might call the corporal of the guard."

"Yes. As the long silent hours wore away the soldier yielded to the
demands of nature: he himself incurred the death penalty by sleeping at
his post of duty."

"You did."

"What! you recognize me? you have known me all along?"

The captain had risen and was walking the floor of his tent, visibly
excited. His face was flushed, the gray eyes had lost the cold, pitiless
look which they had shown when Brune had seen them over the pistol
barrel; they had softened wonderfully.

"I knew you," said the spy, with his customary tranquillity, "the moment
you faced me, demanding my surrender. In the circumstances it would have
been hardly becoming in me to recall these matters. I am perhaps a
traitor, certainly a spy; but I should not wish to seem a suppliant."

The captain had paused in his walk and was facing his prisoner. There
was a singular huskiness in his voice as he spoke again.

"Mr. Brune, whatever your conscience may permit you to be, you saved my
life at what you must have believed the cost of your own. Until I saw
you yesterday when halted by my sentinel I believed you dead--thought
that you had suffered the fate which through my own crime you might
easily have escaped. You had only to step from the car and leave me to
take your place before the firing-squad. You had a divine compassion.
You pitied my fatigue. You let me sleep, watched over me, and as the
time drew near for the relief-guard to come and detect me in my crime,
you gently waked me. Ah, Brune, Brune, that was well done--that was
great--that--"

The captain's voice failed him; the tears were running down his face and
sparkled upon his beard and his breast. Resuming his seat at the table,
he buried his face in his arms and sobbed. All else was silence.

Suddenly the clear warble of a bugle was heard sounding the "assembly."
The captain started and raised his wet face from his arms; it had turned
ghastly pale. Outside, in the sunlight, were heard the stir of the men
falling into line; the voices of the sergeants calling the roll; the
tapping of the drummers as they braced their drums. The captain spoke
again:

"I ought to have confessed my fault in order to relate the story of your
magnanimity; it might have procured you a pardon. A hundred times I
resolved to do so, but shame prevented. Besides, your sentence was just
and righteous. Well, Heaven forgive me! I said nothing, and my regiment
was soon