"Kindly hold your tongue, sir, and don't interfere," answered Bradford, his assurance growing.
"But he won't get there, sir; it's a beast of a road, and he'll turn back for certain. It's courting failure to send him. Let me have the third column, sir, I found the man."
"You, a Captain, utterly impossible," Bradford was beginning, when Hector received quite unlooked-for support.
"With all respect, sir," said Godwin, "I think, if it could be managed, Graeme's wish should be indulged. As he says, sir, he found the man, and——" but here once more the odd quaver sounded in the speaker's voice; he paused, and then continued, "Apart from everything else, he alone knows the track."
"But how the dickens can I? He'd be junior to the leader."
"I think I could arrange that, sir. Keep Colonel Carthew with you, and give Graeme the Colonial troops. There are less than a hundred of them, quite enough for the third column, if what he says is right about the ground. He said, didn't you, Graeme?" turning to the latter, "that you were standing on the edge of a precipice, so they're hardly likely to break that way. Let him have Rufford's lot, sir; he's only a Captain too, and won't mind, I know."
"He's a Major by now, though his name is not in the 'Gazette' yet; besides, even as a Captain, he's senior to Graeme."
Godwin, however, stuck to his point.
"Send him a note, sir, telling him to act under Major Graeme's orders to-night. You can rectify the mistake to-morrow."
"Oh, damn it, Godwin, what for?"