'That little fiend of yours tried his tricks on again last night, tried to knife me,' he said presently.

'And you killed him?'

'I took away his knife and boxed his ears,' he told me, lighting his pipe with one of my last matches. 'It's a treat to get a decent match, Billums, I hate those "stinkerados"[#] we get in this confounded country.'

[#] 'Stinkerados' is a term applied to the ordinary foul-smelling Spanish sulphur matches.

'Confounded country!' I answered angrily. 'You seem to be risking a good deal for it. I wished to goodness you'd killed the beast."

'My dear Billums, I'd fight on either side so long as I could get a bit of excitement—so long as I could boss the show.'

'I wish to goodness I could chip in with you,' I told him. 'I don't even boss the gun-room—not properly, the Commander thinks.' Oh, bother the Hector! I remembered that my leave was up at noon. 'Bother it all, Gerald, I've got to keep the "afternoon" watch, and see that a boat doesn't shove off with the fenders over its side, and listen respectfully whilst the Commander bellows at me that a man hasn't got his chin-stay down, and that I'm an incompetent, useless fool. It's nearly ten o'clock now and I must be off.'

He got me a horse, and I left him, his worn-out little brown chaps, and his wounded, and shoved off back to San Fernando, galloping along the beach, and learnt then what an unsuccessful cavalry charge meant; for the shore was strewn with dead and dying horses, dead men, rifles, swords, lances, and, more conspicuous than anything else, the red blankets they'd thrown away in their retreat. The tide, too, had risen and was half covering some of the bodies with sand, as if it wanted to hide the horrid sight and wipe out all traces of that awful morning's work.

I was looking about me for something to take back for the mater, and had passed any number of ordinary swords, which were not worth the trouble of dismounting, but at last saw one with a very elaborate hilt and sword-knot, lying close to a body stretched face downwards in the sand, so jumped off and picked it up. The uniform on the body was that of an officer, and out of curiosity I turned the head round with my foot. Ugh! It was Zorilla's black A.D.C., the chap who had been so impressed with our after 9.2 gun that day we anchored off Los Angelos. I scrambled back into the saddle with his sword and rode on, shuddering and thinking a lot of things which I couldn't write down, without you laughing at me.

Presently, as I got a bit more chirpy, and began looking round again, I saw a little chap trudging along ahead of me, splashing through the edge of the sea where the sand was firmer. Something about him seemed familiar, and as I overtook him he looked round, gave a yelp of fright, and bolted, drawing a machete out of his belt. It was the little brute, and I dug my heels into the horse and was after him like a shot. I simply rode him down—he couldn't run fast in the loose sand—and at last turned, holding up the machete to protect himself. I was jolly glad that he'd lost his revolver, for I had lost mine somewhere. I meant to kill him, and I saw that he knew it, and that he couldn't be springy on his feet in the sand, and struck at him for all I was worth with the A.D.C.'s sword, meaning to beat down his guard and get at his head, but the horse swerved when he saw the sword flash, and the blade only came down on the back of the hand which held the machete and lopped the fingers clean off, the machete falling down. I wrenched the horse round and went at him again, and was just going to finish him when, I'm sorry to say, something inside me wouldn't let me kill him now that he couldn't defend himself, and, like the ass I am,—how I cursed myself for it afterwards—I jumped off and tried to stop the bleeding. He thought me a fool, I know, and so I was.