doing I cannot tell.  I could not tell you when their sticks began to beat me.  But they dragged me away when I had freed only one arm.  I remember seeing him tugging at the other.  What happened to me,”—­he shivered,—­“I could not describe to you.  But you see I had played the coward finely at Mequinez, and when that question recurred to me as to what had happened after I had opened the door, I began to wonder whether by any chance I had played the coward at Tangier.  I dismissed the thought as a sickly fancy, but it came again and again; and I came back here, and you draw aloof from me with averted faces and forced welcomes on your lips.  Did I play the coward on that night I was captured?  Tell me!  Tell me!” And so the torrent of his speech came to an end.

The Major rose gravely from his seat, walked round the table and held out his hand.

“Put your hand there, lad,” he said gravely.

Knightley looked at the outstretched hand, then at the Major’s face.  He took the hand diffidently, and the Major’s grasp was of the heartiest.

“Neither at Mequinez nor at Tangier did you play the coward,” said the Major.  “You fell by my side in the van of the attack.”

And then Knightley began to cry.  He blubbered like a child, and with his blubbering he mixed apologies.  He was weak, he was tired, his relief was too great; he was thoroughly ashamed.

“You see,” he said, “there was need that I should know.  My wife is waiting for me.  I could not go back to her bearing that stigma.  Indeed, I hardly dared ask news of her.  Now I can go back; and, gentlemen, I wish you good-night.”

He stood up, made his bow, wiped his eyes, and began to walk to the door.  Scrope rose instantly.

“Sit down, Lieutenant,” said the Major sharply, and Scrope obeyed with reluctance.

The Major watched Knightley cross the room.  Should he let the Ensign go?  Should he keep him?  He could not decide.  That Knightley would seek his wife at once might of course have been foreseen; and yet it had not been foreseen either by the Major or the others.  The present facts, as they had succeeded one after another had engrossed their minds.

Knightley’s hand was on the door, and the Major had not decided.  He pushed the door open, he set a foot in the passage, and then the roar of a gun shook the room.

“Ah!” remarked Wyley, “the signal for your sortie.”

Knightley stopped and listened.  Major Shackleton stood in a fixed attitude with his eyes upon the floor.  He had hit upon an issue, it seemed to him by inspiration.  The noise of the gun was followed by ten clear strokes of a bell.

“That’s for the King’s Battalion,” said Knightley with a smile.

“Yes,” said Tessin, and picking up his sword from a corner he slung the bandolier across his shoulder.

The bell rang out again; this time the number of the strokes was twenty.