The horse, revolving, cut short his harangue.
"Keep that d—d lantern out of his eyes!" cried the Colonel.
George jumped up, and as he did so the water swished in his boots, and a stream poured off his cap. The horse was being fatally attracted towards him. The beam of the lantern fell on him, illuminating before his face the long slants of rain.
"Ha! Who's this?" the Colonel demanded, steadying the horse.
George smartly saluted, forgetting his fatigue.
"You, is it? And what are you supposed to be doing? Look here—" Colonel Hullocher stopped in full career of invective, remembering military etiquette. "Major, I suggest you send Mr. Cannon with some men to find the convoy." The Major having eagerly concurred, the Colonel went on: "Take a few men and search every road and track between here and Kingswood Station—systematically. Kingswood's the rail-head, and somewhere between here and there that convoy is bound to be. Systematically, mind! It's not a technical job. All that's wanted is common sense and thoroughness."
The Colonel's gaze was ruthlessly challenging. George met it stiffly. He knew that the roads, if not the tracks, had already been searched. He knew that he was being victimized by a chance impulse of the Colonel's. But he ignored all that. He was coldly angry and resentful. Utterly for
getting his fatigue, he inimically surveyed the Colonel's squat, shining figure in the cavalry coat, a pyramid of which the apex was a round head surmounted by a dripping cap.
"Yes, sir," he snapped.
By rights the tyrant ought to have rolled off his horse dead. But Colonel Hullocher was not thus vulnerable. He could give glance for glance with perhaps any human being on earth, and indeed thought little more of subalterns than of rabbits.