"It was a snore, Mr. Brooker, and it proceeded from one of the sentries upon guard."
"Sir ... I ... I can expl——"
"Oblige me by not interrupting, Mr. Brooker. This sentry sat upon a short post, his back fitted comfortably into an angle of the Convent fence, his head thrown back, and his mouth wide open. From it, or from the organ immediately above, the snore proceeded. He was having a capital night's rest—in the Service of his Country. And as I halted in front of him, fixing upon him a gaze which was coldly observant, he shivered and ceased to snore, and said":—the wretched Brooker heard his own voice, rendered with marvellous fidelity, speaking in the muffled tone of the sleeper—"'Annie, it's damned cold to-night; and you've got all the blanket.'"
"Sir ... sir!" The stricken Brooker babbled hideously.... "Colonel ... for mercy's sake!..."
"I could not oblige the gentleman with a blanket, Mr. Brooker, but I relieved him of his rifle and left him, to tell his picket a cock-and-bull story of having been drugged and hypnotised by Boer spies. And—I will overlook it upon the present occasion, but in War-time, Mr. Brooker, men have been shot for less. I think I need not detain you further. Your rifle has been sent to your headquarters—with my card and an explanation. One word more, Mr. Brooker——"
Brooker, grey, streaky, and desperately wretched, was blind to the laughter brimming the keen hazel eyes.
"I am entrusted by the Imperial Government with the preservation of Public Morality in Gueldersdorp, as well as with the maintenance of the Public Safety—and I should be glad of an assurance from you that Mrs. Brooker's Christian name is really Annie?"
"I—I swear it, Colonel!"
Brooker fled, leaving the preserver of public morality to have his laugh out before he rejoined the Staff, glancing at the Waterbury on the short steel chain. Half-past ten. Would the Dop Doctor turn up to appointment, or had the battle with habit and the deadly craving born of indulgence ended in defeat? As his eyes moved from the dial, they lighted upon the man:
"Clothed and in his right mind...."