Abel knew all this as he pressed his teeth together to keep down the agonising feeling of despair he felt already as the men came on in regular pace, with the barrels of the muskets and their bayonets gleaming, and he expected to hear an exclamation of astonishment with the command “Halt!”—when something unusual did happen.
For all at once, just as the back of Abel’s head must have loomed up like a black stone close by the sergeant’s path, and the rays of light glistened on his short, crisp, black hair, there came a loud croaking bellow from down in the swamp by the crook, and Dinny exclaimed aloud:
“Hark at that now!”
“Silence in the ranks!” cried the sergeant fiercely; and then, as if the Irishman’s words were contagious, he, turning his head as did his men towards the spot whence the sound proceeded, exclaimed, “What was it?”
“One of them lovely crockidills, sergeant dear—the swate craytures, with that plisant smile they have o’ their own. Hark at him again!”
The same croaking roar arose, but more distant, as if it were the response to a challenge.
“Don’t it carry you home again sergeant, dear?”
“Silence in the—How, Dinny?” said the sergeant, good-humouredly, for the men were laughing.
“Why, my mother had a cow—a Kerry cow, the darlint—and Farmer Magee, half a mile across the bog, had a bull, and you could hear him making love to her at toimes just like that, and moighty plisant it was.”
“And used he to come across the bog,” said the sergeant, “to court her?”