"Take it easy, old chap!" he said. "It was bound to come, you know. It was never meant to be more than a temporary occupation among these friendlies. They have been useful to us, I admit. But we can't fight their battles for them for ever. It's time for them to stand on their own legs. Have a smoke!"
Duncannon ignored the invitation. He turned pale to the lips. For a space of seconds he said nothing whatever. Then at length, slowly, in a voice that was curiously even, "Yes, I've taught 'em to fight," he said. "And now I'm to leave 'em to be massacred, am I?"
Herne shrugged his shoulders again, not because he was actually indifferent, but because, under the circumstances, it was the easiest answer to make.
Duncannon went on in the same dead-level tone:
"Yes, they've been useful to us, these friendlies. They've made common cause with us against those infernal Wandis. They might have stayed neutral, or they might have whipped us off the ground. But they didn't. They brought us supplies, and they brought us mules, and they helped us along generally, and hauled us out of tight corners. They've given us all we asked for, and more to it. And now they are going to pay the penalty, to reap our gratitude. They're going to be left to themselves to fight our enemies—the fellows we couldn't beat—single-handed, without experience, without a leader, and only half trained. They are going to be left as a human sacrifice to pay our debts."
He paused, standing erect and tense, staring out into the blinding sunlight. Then suddenly, like the swift kindling of a flame, his attitude changed. He flung up his hands with a wild gesture.
"No, I'm damned!" he cried violently. "I'm damned if they shall! They are my men—the men I made. I've taught 'em every blessed thing they know. I've taught 'em to reverence the old flag, and I'm damned if I'll see them betrayed! You can go back to the Chief, and tell him so! Tell him they're British subjects, staunch to the backbone! Why, they can even sing the first verse of the National Anthem! You'll hear them at it to-night before they turn in. They always do. It's a sort of evening hymn to them. Oh, Monty, Monty, what cursed trick will our fellows think of next, I wonder? Are we men, or are we reptiles, we English? And we boast—we boast of our national honour!"
He broke off, breathing short and hard, as a man desperately near to collapse, and leaned his head on his arm against the rough wall as if in shame.
Herne glanced at him once or twice before replying.
"You see," he said at length, speaking somewhat laboriously, "what we've got to do is to obey orders. We were sent out here not to think but to do. We're on Government service. They are responsible for the thinking part. We have to carry it out, that's all. They have decided to evacuate this district, and withdraw to the coast. So"—again he shrugged his shoulders—"there's no more to be said. We must go."