To and fro along the path a party of young ladies was strolling disconsolate. They walked in pairs, to be sure: and the hum of their voices reached to the laylock-bush as they bent and discussed the flowers in Aunt Barbree's border. Not a uniform, not a man, was in sight.
"There!" said Miss St. Maur. "There, sir! What did I tell you?"
VII.
The cause of it all was Nandy. Nandy had found a nice out-of-the-way corner of the foreshore, with a patch of mud above the water's edge, and, after a good roll in it (it was a trifle smellier than the baths at Hi-jeen Villa, but nothing amiss), had waded out into the tide for a thorough wash. He was standing in water up to his armpits and rinsing the mud out of his hair, when, happening to glance shorewards, he caught a glimpse of scarlet, and rubbed his eyes to see a red-coated soldier standing on the beach and overhauling his clothes, which he had left there in a heap.
"Hi!" sang out Nandy. "You leave those clothes alone: they're mine!"
The soldier put up a hand and seemed to be beckoning, cautious-like.
Nandy waded nearer. "Looky-here, lobster—none of your tricks!" he said. "They-there clothes belong to me."
"I ain't goin' to be a lobster, as you put it, much longer," said the soldier. "I'm a-goin' to cast my shell." And with that he begins to unbutton his tunic. "If you try to interfere, young man, I'll wring your neck; and if you cry out, I carry a pistol upon me—" and sure enough he pulled a pistol from his pocket and laid it on the stones between his feet. "I'm a desperate man," he said.
"Hullo!" said Nandy, beginning to understand. "Desertin', eh?"
The soldier nodded as he flung the tunic down on the beach—and Nandy took note of the figures 32 in brass on the collar. "It's all along of a woman," said he.