“You thought it was—did you? And what makes you think?” he said, lashing himself into madness as he went on; “to Hell with your thinking, ye dirty spies.”
“Simmons, ye so-oor,” chuckled the parrot in the veranda, sleepily, recognizing a well-known voice. Now that was absolutely all.
The tension snapped. Simmons fell back on the arm-rack deliberately,—the men were at the far end of the room,—and took out his rifle and packet of ammunition. “Don’t go playing the goat, Sim!” said Losson. “Put it down,” but there was a quaver in his voice. Another man stooped, slipped his boot and hurled it at Simmon’s head. The prompt answer was a shot which, fired at random, found its billet in Losson’s throat. Losson fell forward without a word, and the others scattered.
“You thought it was!” yelled Simmons. “You’re drivin’ me to it! I tell you you’re drivin’ me to it! Get up, Losson, an’ don’t lie shammin’ there-you an’ your blasted parrit that druv me to it!”
But there was an unaffected reality about Losson’s pose that showed Simmons what he had done. The men were still clamoring on the veranda. Simmons appropriated two more packets of ammunition and ran into the moonlight, muttering: “I’ll make a night of it. Thirty roun’s, an’ the last for myself. Take you that, you dogs!”
He dropped on one knee and fired into the brown of the men on the veranda, but the bullet flew high, and landed in the brickwork with a vicious phant that made some of the younger ones turn pale. It is, as musketry theorists observe, one thing to fire and another to be fired at.
Then the instinct of the chase flared up. The news spread from barrack to barrack, and the men doubled out intent on the capture of Simmons, the wild beast, who was heading for the Cavalry parade-ground, stopping now and again to send back a shot and a Lurse in the direction of his pursuers.
“I’ll learn you to spy on me!” he shouted; “I’ll learn you to give me dorg’s names! Come on the ‘ole lot O’ you! Colonel John Anthony Deever, C.B.!”—he turned toward the Infantry Mess and shook his rifle—“you think yourself the devil of a man—but I tell ‘jou that if you Put your ugly old carcass outside O’ that door, I’ll make you the poorest-lookin’ man in the army. Come out, Colonel John Anthony Deever, C.B.! Come out and see me practiss on the rainge. I’m the crack shot of the ‘ole bloomin’ battalion.” In proof of which statement Simmons fired at the lighted windows of the mess-house.
“Private Simmons, E Comp’ny, on the Cavalry p’rade-ground, Sir, with thirty rounds,” said a Sergeant breathlessly to the Colonel. “Shootin’ right and lef’, Sir. Shot Private Losson. What’s to be done, Sir?”
Colonel John Anthony Deever, C.B., sallied out, only to be saluted by a spurt of dust at his feet.