A brief gleam of satisfaction crossed the cherub’s mild blue eyes. “I frightened him too bad for that, sir,” he said; and then, as the colonel’s grave eyes did not cease to regard him, there came a quick little break in his voice.
“I wasn’t drunk, sir. I wouldn’t tell you a lie, sir, nor do nothing that’s off—there’s marks against me a many, but not for things that’s off; I ask you to believe I wasn’t drunk, sir——”
“Clear the Court,” said the colonel.
The guard, the prisoner, and the witnesses filed out and the door closed, and the colonel leaned forward in his chair. He seemed disproportionately moved.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “if the prisoner is to be seriously punished, I ask you to remember it’s dismissal and imprisonment. Let me make a suggestion. It was a very hot day—he’s been in India—possibly an old sunstroke——”
“A bit discredited, that,” observed the doctor.
“He would be punished, of course, but more leniently. It’s all I can put forward. It rests with the Court.”
He leaned back again, troubled. In the hum of consultation he heard Warren’s slightly sarcastic laugh, and thought he heard the major say: “Oh, let it go at that; Neville seems to want it.”
“Very well, sir,” said the major by and by; “we are agreed.”
And as the cherub, returning with the guard, received the milder sentence, he looked humbly and gratefully at his colonel. He recognised that there are things that a commanding officer cannot overlook, but that a private gentleman, on occasion, may.