"'What, sir?' says I, 'and leave—'
"'Do what you're told!' says he, sharp-like."
The little rifleman looked up into the face of his old company commander.
"Well, sir, I'm a soldier. I know my officer. In I goes!"
III
The Parson was stamping up and down like a man in mortal pain.
"And I wasn't there," he moaned. "I left him to do my dirty work—and ran!"
Opening the back-door, he gazed out on the encircling Downs, the light white now behind their blackness.
Outside the door was a fairy circle—just such a circle as a long-armed man with a sweeping sword would make—and round it not twinkling fairies but dead men. It was as though this was a magic ring, fatal to all who crossed it.
In the centre of the ring he could detect heel-marks, where the Gentleman had stood.