ry little--for
about the twentieth time, when a smur of colour showed on the mirror,
and the next instant passed into a dark shadow. It may be that the
marksman within the cottage had spied yet another rifleman in the
street. But the sergeant had noted the reflection in the glass, that
it was red. Two shots rang out together. But the sergeant, after
peering through the parapet, stood upright, walked back across the
roofs, and regained the stairway.

The street was empty. From one of the doorways a voice called to him
to come back. But he walked on, up the street and across the roadway
to a green-painted wicket. It opened upon a garden, and across the
garden he came to a flight of steps with an open door above. Through
this, too, he passed and stared into a small room. On the far side
of it, in an armchair, sat Corporal Sam, leaning back, with a hand to
his breast; and facing him, with a face full of innocent wonder,
stood a child--a small, grave, curly-headed child.

CHAPTER VIII.

'I'm glad you done it quick,' said Corporal Sam.

His voice was weak, yet he managed to get out the words firmly,
leaning back in the wooden armchair, with one hand on his left
breast, spread and covering the lower ribs.

The sergeant did not answer at once. Between the spread fingers he
saw a thin stream welling, darker than the scarlet tunic which it
discoloured. For perhaps three seconds he watched it. To him the
time seemed as many minutes, and all the while he was aware of the
rifle-barrel warm in his grasp.

'Because,' Corporal Sam pursued with a smile that wavered a little,
half wistfully seeking his eyes, 'you'd 'a had to do it, anyway--
wouldn't you? And any other way it--might--'a been hard.'

'Lad, what _made_ you?'

It was all Sergeant Wilkes could say, and he said it, wondering at
the sound of his own voice. The child, who, seeing that the two were
friends and not, after all, disposed to murder one another, had
wandered to the head of the stairs to look down into the sunlit
garden shining below, seemed to guess that something was amiss after
all, and, wandering back, stood at a little distance, finger to lip.

'I don't know,' the corporal answered, like a man with difficulty
trying to collect his thoughts. 'Leastways, not to explain to you.
It must 'a been comin' on for some time.'

'But _what_, lad--_what?_'

'Ah--"what?" says you. That's the trouble, and I can't never make
you _see_--yes, ma