They went at a trot, the sound, however, having stopped. Presently they saw by the increasing light in front of them that they were nearing a road. They heard voices, spurred forward, and in a few seconds were in the lane.
‘It’s the guns,’ said Jack; ‘the officer in command will be near the head of the column.’
He turned into the narrow lane, when he saw a group of officers, not in the blue-and-gold of the artillery, but in scarlet and cocked hats.
‘The staff, by all that’s howly!’ murmured Larry.
‘Lord Raglan himself,’ said Jack in hardly audible tones, fixing his eyes on a white-haired, one-armed man dressed in a blue frock, who with no very pleased expression on his face rode in the centre of a group of officers.
The trumpeters sat rigidly in their saddles, and dropped their right hands behind their thighs in salute.
‘Where do you come from and where are your regiments?’ asked the commander-in-chief sternly, and by these words the youths knew that the great man was exceedingly displeased.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
LARRY WINS DISTINCTION.
LARRY O’CALLAGHAN ventured to reply, ‘Plase, yer honour—I mane me lordship—we’re lookin’ for the artillery.’
‘By whose orders?’