INVENTORY.
“On hand, as per last return, seven: taken up since last return, as per inventory, seven; viz.—”
| Page | |
| The March of the Forty Thieves | [13] |
| A Tale of Two Towers | [49] |
| One from the Veteran | [79] |
| Woodleigh, Q.M. | [103] |
| The Kerwick Cup | [127] |
| Officially Reported | [155] |
| Special Orders, No. 49 | [185] |
THE MARCH
OF THE
FORTY THIEVES.
The long, low room that we call The Battery seemed most depressingly quiet. Sam was there, to be sure, but his presence hardly counted, for he was sound-and-fast asleep in his own little box, partitioned off in the far corner.
I foraged ’round for pipe and plug-cut, lighted up, and wandered over to the bookcase. There was nothing in it—nothing that I felt up to the bother of reading. I went over to the long oaken table and picked up a copy of the Service Journal, but it proved to be a back number, so I tossed it down again upon the disorderly pile of periodicals, and then climbed upon the cushions of the wide dormer-window, just as the rattle of wheels upon the stone flagging in the court far below shattered the stillness of the July afternoon.
A few words in a familiar voice came indistinctly up to me; the wheels clattered again, but more faintly, as the unseen vehicle was driven out through the archway to the street beyond; and steadily up the long stairs, flight after flight, sounded a quick, firm tread. And then the door swung wide upon its hinges, and Bones, our surgeon—Dr. Sawin, outside the service—broke into the room, with his favorite greeting: “Hello, inside! Never mind the guard!”