sunken eyes made him look older than he really was. Although
he was home on sick leave, he showed no sign of weakness; his every
movement suggested strength and decision.

'Glad to know you,' he said; 'it's a degrading sort of business to go
round the country persuading men to do their duty, but since there are
so many shirkers in the country, some one's obliged to do it. We shall
need all the strength of England, and of the Empire, before we've done,
if this job is to be finished satisfactorily; the Germans will need a
lot of licking.'

'Still, our chaps are doing very well,' I ventured.

'Oh, yes, they are all right. But naturally these new fellows haven't
the staying power of the men in the old Army. They, poor chaps, were
nearly all done for in the early days of the war. Still, the
Territorials saved the situation.'

'You've seen service in the East?' I ventured.

'Yes, Egypt and India.'

'It was in Egypt that Captain Springfield knew my brother Maurice,' and
George St. Mabyn glanced quickly at him as he spoke.

'The country lost a fine soldier in Maurice St. Mabyn,' said
Springfield. 'If he had lived, he'd have been colonel by now; in fact,
there is no knowing what he mightn't have become. He had a big mind,
and was able to take a broad grasp of things. I'd like to have seen
him at the General Headquarters in France. What Maurice St. Mabyn
didn't know about soldiering wasn't worth knowing. Still, he's dead,
poor chap.'

'Were you with him when he died?' I asked.

'Yes, I was,--that is I was in the show when he was killed. It was one
of those affairs which make it hard to forgive Providence. You see, it
was only a small skirmish; some mad mullah of a fellow became a paid
agitator among the natives. He stirred up a good deal of religious
feeling, and quite a number of poor fools joined him. By some means,
too, he obtained arms for them. St. Mabyn was ordered to put down what
the English press called "a native rebellion." He was able to do it
easily for although he hadn't many men, he planned our attack so
perfectly that we blew them into smithereens in a few hours.'

'And you were in it?' I asked.

'Yes,' and then in a few words he described how Maurice St. Mabyn was
killed.

'It's jolly hard when a friend dies like that,' I said awkwardly.

'Yes,' was Springfield's reply, 'it is. Of course it is one of the
risks of the Army, and I am sure that Maurice would have gone into it,
even