The Blackguard

by Roger Pocock

THE BLACKGUARD.

BY

ROGER POCOCK.

WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED,
LONDON, NEW YORK, & MELBOURNE.

THE BLACKGUARD

CHAPTER I

"Think of your sins,
What made you a soldier a-serving the Queen:
God save the Queen,
And God save the duffer who thinks of to-morrow.
God save the man who remembers his sorrow,
God save the man who can think of the past,
Sundown at last:
Here's rest for the past, and here's hope for the morrow!"

That is exactly what the bugle said to a man who was sitting on the edge of the bench-land in the evening calm. He was a very big man, dressed in a grey woollen undershirt, worn-out riding-breeches with a two-inch yellow stripe down the legs, and jack-boots. By his side lay a broad grey slouch-hat, such as cowboys wear; on his knees a bath-towel—dry; and in his neighbourhood lingered a faint aroma of stables. The man's bare arms were like the thighs of an average sinner, his shoulders, thighs, breast, neck, all of gigantic strength and beauty, a sight that would have appealed to any athlete as beyond the loveliness of women.

The setting sun just touched his wavy, crisp, black hair with a lustre of metal. Again, his face, still, strong, silent, had an odd suggestiveness of a bronze statue, that of something Greek but uncanny, a faun, perhaps, or a satyr. The hair, sweeping low over his brows, might almost conceal incipient horns; his ears might have been tufted; his features defying all the rules—stuck on anyhow; the subtle devilry of his deep black eyes, the ugly fascination, the whimsical dignity; the bearing lofty, defiant, almost magnificent; and again, an air, indefinite enough, of sorrowful majesty;—how well everything about the man fitted one name—the Blackguard.