The Colonel was away on business soon after sunrise, long before the boys were awake. The Russians had had enough for the moment and gave them a quiet night.
He came in while they were breakfasting, with a satisfied look on his face.
"Well, Jack, how goes it? You were both sleeping like tops when I left you."
"I feel like a jelly-fish on Carne beach, sir," said Jack. "I have a very great disinclination to move."
"Cuts twingy?"
"When I think of them, sir. At present I can think of nothing but this coffee. They give us ours green, you know, and nothing to roast or grind it with."
"So I heard. I would like to see what would happen if they sent ours like that; but, mon Dieu! I wouldn't like to be in their shoes! The good old fashion of hanging a commissary whenever anything went wrong was certainly effective. Jim, my boy, I've got your matter arranged all right. You are to get away to-morrow with a fortnight's leave. That should pull you round."
"It's awfully good of you, sir. It's just what I'm needing."
"Talking of hanging commissaries," said the Colonel, with a whimsical smile on his dark face, "it was all I could do to keep my hands off one of your pig-heads down at Balaclava yonder." And he switched his long mud-caked riding-boot with his whip as if it were the gentleman in question.
"I called on Lord Raglan to ask his permission to my plan, and at first he was a bit stiff and stand-offish. But he came round and spoke very nicely of you, my boy. He wouldn't discuss that foolish charge of yours, and I did not press It. He granted you leave at once, and gave me a written order for your passage to and from Constantinople by first ship that was leaving."