“And your foes know so.”
Justin bowed his head in acknowledgment of this compliment.
“Well, Colonel Rosenthal, as a brave man, you have no fear of death,” said Monck, coolly throwing away his stump of cigar and lighting another.
“At least I have faced it often enough,” replied Justin.
“And faced it fearlessly, no doubt.”
“I trust so. But really I do not know to what this talk is tending.”
“No, you really do not seem to know. And that is the worst of it. This breaking of bad news is a very difficult matter, especially when the hearer does not help the speaker by jumping half way to the conclusion. But to return to our mutton—our dead mutton! So you have faced death, and faced it fearlessly; death in the field, and death in the hospital; death sharp and sudden as a sabre stroke, and death slow and painful as the gnawing of the worm that never dies!”
“I have looked upon death in all these aspects,” answered Colonel Rosenthal, gravely.
“And he has no terrors for you—
‘For come he slow or come he fast,