o us both, though I believe that I alone was
conscious of it at the time; and we were leaving the house, splendidly
supplied, when we almost ran into the arms of an infantry officer, with
a scowl upon his red-hot face, and an eye-glass flaming at us in the
sun.

"Peter Bellingham!" gasped Raffles under his breath, and then we
saluted and tried to pass on, with the bottles ringing like
church-bells under our khaki. But Captain Bellingham was a hard man.

"What have you men been doin'?" drawled he.

"Nothing, sir," we protested, like innocence with an injury.

"Lootin' 's forbidden," said he. "You had better let me see those
bottles."

"We are done," whispered Raffles, and straightway we made a sideboard
of the stoop across which he had crept at so inopportune a moment. I
had not the heart to raise my eyes again, yet it was many moments
before the officer broke silence.

"Uam Var!" he murmured reverentially at last. "And Long John of Ben
Nevis! The first drop that's been discovered in the whole
psalm-singing show! What lot do you two belong to?"

I answered.

"I must have your names."

In my agitation I gave my real one. Raffles had turned away, as though
in heart-broken contemplation of our lost loot. I saw the officer
studying his half-profile with an alarming face.

"What's YOUR name?" he rapped out at last.

But his strange, low voice said plainly that he knew, and Raffles faced
him with the monosyllable of confession and assent. I did not count
the seconds until the next word, but it was Captain Bellingham who
uttered it at last.

"I thought you were dead."

"Now you see I am not."

"But you are at your old games!"

"I am not," cried Raffles, and his tone was new to me. I have seldom
heard one more indignant. "Yes," he continued, "this is loot, and the
wrong 'un will out. That's what you're thinking, Peter--I beg your
pardon--sir. But he isn't let out in the field! We're playing the
game as much as you are, old--sir."

The plural number caused the captain to toss me a contemptuous look.
"Is this the fellah who was taken when you swam for it?" he inquired,
relapsing into his drawl. Raffles said I was, and with that took a
passionate oath upon our absolute rectitude as volunteers. There could
be no doubting him; but the officer's eyes went back at the bottles on
the stoop.

"But look at those," said he; and as he looked himself the light eye
melted in his fiery face. "And I'v