"The young woman wot was with the Dutchman, she jabbed me with a 'at-pin, to git me to let 'im go."
"There's a blindin' vixen for you!" commented the Sergeant. "Two inch higher, and she'd have doused your light out. Where did she come from, d'ye know?"
"Have you any idea who she was?" asked the Commander of the picket.
W. Keyse shook his head.
"'Aven't the least idear, sir. Never sor 'er before in my natural!" he declared stoutly.
"Well, you'll know her again when you meet her—or she will you," said the patrol-officer, about to move on, when a deplorable figure came staggering into the circle, and the rider reined up his horse. "What's this? Hey, Johnny, where's your gun?"
It was W. Keyse's fellow-sentry from the opposite flank of the Convent.
"And time you turned up, I don't think," commented W. Keyse. "Didn't you 'ear me sing out to you just now?"
"Come, now, what were you up to?" the Sergeant pressed. "Better up an' own it if you've bin asleep on guard."
The eager faces crowded round. The object of interest and comment, not at all sympathetic or polite, was a stout, respectable tradesman, with a large, round, ghastly face, who saluted his officer with a trembling hand.