The men in the passage still made no sign.
"Slids, Oliver," said the Colonel, "I can't see this ugly devil's game yet, but, whatever it is, you came near to spoiling it. Damme, it was a good idea to pepper the horse. Curse me! Where were my fifty years of soldiering that I couldn't think of it?"
"I suppose it comes from my being--"
The sweetest and whitest fingers in the world closed my mouth, and Margaret, thinking that I was on the verge of backsliding, whispered in my ear, "The readiest-witted gentleman in England."
I tingled with the joy of her touch, and turned to her so that I might go on into the coming fight with her last shade of emotion burnt into my memory. A stream of lead poured through the window, but the spluttering of bullets on the walls of the room had no more effect on me than the pattering of hailstones.
"May I finish my sentence, madam?"
"Not as you intended, sir."
"I can't go back on old Bloggs' teaching, madam."
She pouted and frowned, both at once, and the Colonel bawled through the noise of the fusillade, "Being what?"
"Fond of Virgil," roared I back again.