"He's pretty hard on General Taffy, tho," said the lieutenant. "He says we ought to have the Tutonian mailed fist. Taffy is much too soft, he thinks."
Sam bit his lips. He could not criticize his superior officer before a subaltern, but he was tempted to.
On reaching headquarters Sam found that he was to take charge of a punitive expedition in the North, whose chief object was to be the destruction of native temples, for the purpose of giving the inhabitants a lesson. He was to have command of his own regiment, two companies of cavalry, and a field-battery. They were to set out in two days. He spent the intermediate time in completing the preparations, which had been well under way before his arrival, and in studying the map. No one knew how much opposition he might expect.
It was early in the morning on a hot summer day that the expedition left the Capital. Sam was mounted on a fine bay stallion, and felt that he was entirely in his element.
"What camp is that over there on the left?" he asked his orderly.
"That's the Anglian camp, sir."
"Are you sure. I can't see their colors. They must have moved their camp."
"Yes, sir, I'm sure. I passed near there last night and I saw half-a-dozen of the men blacking their officers' boots and singing, 'Britons, Britons, never will be slaves!' It must be a tough job too, sir, for everybody's boots are covered with blood. The gutters are running with it."
"I wish we had them with us to-day," said Sam. "They have done such a lot of burning in South Africa that they could show us the best way."
"Yes, sir. But then temple-burning is finer work than burning farmhouses, sir."