ge of the flood. He passed a
very few inhabitants, and these said nothing to him; indeed, did not
appear to see him, but sat by the ruins of their houses with faces
set in a stupid horror. Even the crash of a falling house near by
would scarcely persuade them to stir, and hundreds during the last
three days had been overwhelmed thus and buried.

The sergeant had grown callous to these sights. He walked on,
heeding scarcely more than he was heeded, came to the great square,
and climbed a street leading northwards, a little to the left of the
great convent. The street was a narrow one, for half its length
lined on both sides with fire-gutted houses; but the upper half,
though deserted, appeared to be almost intact. At the very head, and
close under the citadel walls, it took a sharp twist to the right,
and another twist, almost equally sharp, to the left before it ended
in a broader thoroughfare, crossing it at right angles and running
parallel with the ramparts.

At the second twist the sergeant came to a halt; for at his feet,
stretched across the causeway, lay a dead body.

He drew back with a start, and looked about him. Corporal Sam had
been missing since nine o'clock last night, and he felt sure that
Corporal Sam must be here or hereabouts. But no living soul was in
sight.

The body at his feet was that of a rifleman; one of the volunteers
whose presence had been so unwelcome to General Leith and the whole
Fifth Division. The dead fist clutched its rifle; and the sergeant
stooping to disengage this, felt that the body was warm.

'Come back, you silly fool!'

He turned quickly. Another rifleman had thrust his head out of a
doorway close by. The sergeant, snatching up the weapon, sprang and
joined him in the passage where he sheltered.

'I--I was looking for a friend hereabouts.'

'Fat lot of friend you'll find at the head of _this_ street!' snarled
the rifleman, and jerked his thumb towards the corpse. 'That makes
the third already this morning. These Johnnies ain't no sense of
honour left--firing on outposts as you may call it.'

'Where are they firing from?'

'No "they" about it. You saw that cottage--or didn't you?--right
above there, under the wall; the place with one window in it?
There's a devil behind it somewheres; he fires from the back of the
room, and what's more, he never misses his man. You have Nick's own
luck--the pretty target you made, too; that is unless, like some that
c