'Mum told me to do that always when I saw it,' he explained, 'because it's the only place in all the wide, wide world where the flag flies day and night, to show, you know, that it never was hauled down--never--never.' He heaved another sigh of satisfaction, but his face took a puzzled expression. 'Only, you know, I've been here before. I weally have. I wemember it quite, quite well. An' the guns was booming, an' they was wanting to pull down the flag, an' I wouldn't let them.'
Jack Raymond looked down at the child and smiled. 'You, or some one of your sort, dear old chap; and I'll bet you'd do it again, wouldn't you, Jerry?'
Jerry pulled himself together from the mysterious inheritance of the past. 'I'm goin' to, some day,' he said succinctly. 'An' now, please, I want where they buried 'em after dark. All pwoper wif surplices an' "Safe, safe home in port," and all that; but torches and crack-bang firings over the walls--though they was deaders already.'
The description, confused though it was by excess of picturesqueness, sent Jack Raymond unerringly towards the little cemetery where so many heroes rest. But ere they reached the gate, a woman's figure showed upon a side-path.
'There's Miss Drummond; you'll have to go home now, young man,' remarked Jack Raymond, feeling that though Jerrys enthusiasm did not bore him, Lesley's might. But Jerry would have no excuse.
'Oh!' he said confidentially, 'she is only a woman. You tell her to come, and she'll come all wight.
Jack Raymond looked towards the springy step and determined pose of the head which was approaching him with alarm; but Jerry had already run forward, slipped his hand into the girl's, and said--
'He says you're to come too, because he is going to tell us all about the gwaves.'
'Not all,' protested Jack Raymond resignedly; 'but if Miss Drummond can spare us a minute, I'll show you John Ellison's.'
The girl's face lit up. 'Isn't that about all?' she asked quickly. 'The very name seems to dominate the place still. Jân-Ali-shân! That's what the natives call him, your father says, Jerry. It means the "Spirit of Kings." A good name, isn't it, for the man who held this garden against all comers, even starvation?'