"Ay, I saw him. For a man in luck's way he carries a queer sort of face. What's wrong with him?"
"Nothing wrong that I know of. The men reckon him a good officer, too."
"Well, I'll be even with Master Archibald yet. You hear? But about Whitmore now—I caught up with him in Lisbon. You see, he'd got this money off the Jew and he counted on another pocketful from that Belcher woman. He always was a devil to get around women, 'specially the old ones. I don't know if you guessed it, that night, but he'd persuaded the old fool to run off and marry him. Yes, and meantime he'd taken his passage in one of the Falmouth packets, meaning to give her the slip—and give me the slip too—as soon as he'd laid hands on her purse. Well, you headed him off that little plan; and to save his skin, as you know, he rounded on me. Now what puzzles me is, how you let him slip?"
I did not answer this.
"The Belcher woman had a hand in it, I'll lay odds. Never mind— don't you answer if you'd rather not. But when I caught up with him, he didn't escape me: that's to say, he won't: and it'll be a sight worse for him than if he hadn't tried."
He paused again, and laughed to himself silently—a laugh unhealthy to watch.
"I came on him in Lisbon streets," he went on; "came on him from behind and put a hand on his shoulder. He's an almighty coward— that's his secret—and the way he jumped did me good. 'Recruit for the North Wilts,' said I. He turned and his knees caved under him. 'Wha—what do you mean by that?' says he"—and here Leicester burlesqued the poor cold stammering knave to the life—"'Oh, for the Lord's sake, Leicester, have mercy on me!' 'You'll see the kind of mercy you're going to get,' says I; 'but meantime you've a choice between hanging and coming along to join the North Wilts.' 'But why should I join the North Wilts?' he asked. 'Well, to begin with,' I said, 'you're a dreadful coward, and there you'll have some chance to feel what it's really like. And what's more,' I said, 'I'll take care you're in my company, and I'm going to live beside you and give you hell. I'm going to eat beside you, sleep beside you, march beside you: and when things grow hot, and your lilywhite soul begins to shiver, I'll be close to you still—but behind you, my daisy!' So I promised him, and, being a coward, he chose it. I tell you I kept my word too: it's lucky for you, boy, that I'm a connoisseur in my grudges. But Whitmore—he'd betrayed me, you see. Often and often I had him alone and crying! and I promised myself to be behind him on just such a job as we're in for—a night assault: oh, he'd have enjoyed that! But he couldn't stand it. At Celorico he gave me the slip and deserted: and now he's in Ciudad Rodrigo, yonder, and the trap's closing, and—what's he feeling like, think you? Eh? I know him: it'll get worse and worse for him till the end, and—it's a bad death for deserters."
He paused, panting with hate and coughing the fog out of his lungs. I shrank away against the wall of the trench.
"When he's done with, I won't say but what I'll turn my attention to you—or to Plinlimmon. You know what Plinlimmon was after—that morning—on the roof? He was there to steal."
He eyed me.