"I once felt that strongly; the trouble is that the objection applies with equal force to you. Do you deny the story this man told me?"
Blake felt that his task was hard. He had to convict himself, and he must do so logically: Challoner was by no means a fool. As he nerved himself to the effort he was conscious of a rather grim amusement.
"I think it would be better if I tried to show you how the attack was made. Is the old set of Indian chessmen still in the drawer?"
"I believe so. It must be twenty years since they were taken out.
It's strange you should remember them."
A stirring of half-painful emotions troubled Blake. He loved the old house and all that it contained and had a deep-seated pride in the Challoner traditions. Now he must make the Colonel believe that he was a degenerate scion of the honored stock and could have no part in them.
"I have forgotten nothing at Sandymere; but we must stick to the subject." Crossing the floor he came back with the chessmen, which he carefully arranged, setting up the white pawns in two separate ranks to represent bodies of infantry, with the knights and bishops for officers. The colored pieces he placed in an irregular mass.
"Now," he began, "this represents the disposition of our force pretty well. I was here, at the top of the ravine"—he laid a cigar on the table to indicate the spot—"Bertram on the ridge yonder. This bunch of red pawns stands for the Ghazee rush."
"It agrees with what I've heard," said Challoner, surveying the roughly marked scene of battle with critical eyes. "You were weak in numbers, but your position was strong. It could have been held!"
Blake began to move the pieces.
"The Ghazees rolled straight over our first line; my mine, which might have checked them, wouldn't go off—a broken circuit in the firing wires, I suppose. We were hustled out of the trenches; it was too dark for effective rifle fire."