"So I took an oath Samson-style, and I prayed I and I said—'Look here, Lord, if you'll look over what's past, and help me keep a clean tongue in future, I'll kill you a Frenchman a day for seven days….'
"So I sent a challenge into their lines. There was nothing stirring just then, and they took the thing up very readily. The business took place before reveille out in the desert, between the out-post lines at a place they got to call the cock-pit. All the bloods and bucks on both sides used to come out to see the fun. It was the regular thing— to see Black Cock breakfast….
"Well, on the seventh morning as they were carting their chap away, and I was wiping my sword, a swaggering great Cuirassier turned round and shouted,
"'To-morrow we bring David to slay your Goliath!'
"'D'you hear that, Black Cock?' says Olifant, the Guardsman. 'Are you game?'—'I'm not tired, if they ain't,' says I."
His blue eyes began to twinkle.
"Next dawn, when I got to the Cock-pit, and saw their champion, why, he was a boy!—a boy like a girl!—one of these pretty pink and white things, all eyes and legs and a silly smile. 'I am David,' says he. 'Then go back to Jesse,' says I, pretty short. 'I don't fight with kids.'… And that afternoon I sent him a bottle of milk with my compliments."
The Parson stopped his pacing, and looked the boy in the eyes.
"Next day they broke us, sir,—broke the Black Borderers in square."
"Who did?"