corpse where it lay. To my surprise Leicester had released the
woman. She was stealing back through the open window and I caught
but a glimpse of her black head-veil in the wavering lights.
But Leicester still leaned forward with his chin on the balcony rail,
and grinned upon the street and the wall opposite.

I dragged myself from the spot. How long it took me I do not know;
for I crawled on my belly, and there were pauses in my progress of
which I remember nothing. But I remember that at some point in it
there dawned upon me the certainty that this was the very street down
which I had struck on my way from the ramparts. If not the same
street, it must have been one close beside and running parallel with
it: for at daybreak, with no other guidance than this certainty, I
found myself back at the breach, nursing my foot and staring stupidly
downward at the bodies on the slope.

Across the foot of it a young officer was picking his way slowly in
the dawn. A sergeant followed him with a notebook and pencil, and
two men with lanterns. They were numbering the corpses, halting now
and again to turn one over and hold a light to his face, then to his
badge. Half-way down, between them and me, a stink-pot yet
smouldered, and the morning air carried a horrible smell of singed
flesh.

As the dawn widened, one of the men opened his lantern and blew
out the candle within it. The young officer--it was Archibald
Plinlimmon--paused in his search and scanned the sky and the ramparts
above. I sent down a feeble hail.

He heard. His eyes searched along the heaped ruins of gabions,
fascines, and dead bodies; and, recognising me, he came slowly up the
slope.

"Hallo!" said he. "Not badly hurt, I hope? I thought we'd cleared
all the wounded. Where on earth have you come from?"

"From the town, sir."

"We'll take you back to it, then. They've rigged up a couple of
hospitals, and it's nearer than camp. Besides, I doubt if there's an
ambulance left to take you." He knelt and examined my foot.
"Hi, there!" he called down. "You--O'Leary--come and help me with
this boy! Hurt badly, does it? Never mind--we'll get you to
hospital in ten minutes. But what on earth brought you crawling back
here?"

"Mr. Archibald!" I gasped, "I saw _him_!"

"Him?"

"Whitmore!"

He stared at me. "You're off your head a bit, boy. You'll be all
right when we get you to hospital."

"But I saw him, sir! They shot him--against the w