And he gave back the stare of the fierce eyes that raked him. The Minister began to lisp, an ominous sign:
"Ah, indeed! ... May I—may I ask where you—where you gained your notions of the code of ethics that should prevail in warfare?"
Said the surgeon, fronting him fairly and squarely:
"Excellency, from my father, who was an honest man!"
Straw rustled under heads that slewed to look at the blunt speaker. There was a long instant's pause. Then the Chancellor thrust his hand into his breeches-pocket, pulled out a gold coin, and said, tendering it to the medical officer:
"Kindly pay this to the object of your pity for twenty fowls at a mark apiece. Now I will keep you no longer from your patient. Good night to everyone here."
"Good night, Excellency!" came in chorus.
He gave his brusque salute and had already reached the threshold, when his son, a colossal, black-haired, brown-skinned young trooper, who lay back upon his stretcher, staring sulkily at the smoke-blackened rafters, or contemplating the twitching bare toes of the leg that bore a tourniquet above the plugged and bandaged wound, started slightly, looked round, and called:
"Father!"
"What is it, my dear fellow?"