“That’s for my Lord Dunbarton’s Regiment,” said Knightley.

“Yes,” said two of the remaining officers.  They took their hats and followed Captain Tessin down the stairs.

A third time the bell spoke, and the strokes were thirty.

“Ah!” said Knightley, “that’s for the Tangier Foot.  Well, good luck to you, Major!” and he passed through the door.

“A moment, Knightley.  The regiment first.  You wear Ensign Barbour’s uniform.  You must do more than wear his uniform.  The regiment first.”

Major Shackleton spoke in a husky voice and kept his eyes on the floor.  Scrope looked at him keenly from the table.  Knightley hardly looked at him at all.  He stepped back into the room.

“With all my heart, Major:  the regiment first.”

“Your station is at Peterborough Tower.  You will go there—­at once.”

“At once,” replied Knightley cheerfully.  “So she would wish,” and he went down the stairs into the street.  Major Shackleton picked up his hat.

“I command this sortie,” he said to Wyley; but as he turned he found himself confronted by Scrope.

“What do you intend?” asked Scrope.

Major Shackleton looked towards Wyley.  Wyley understood the look and also what Shackleton intended.  He went from the room and left the two men together.

The grey light poured through the window; the candles still burnt yellow on the table.

“What do you intend?”

The Major looked Scrope straight in the face.

“I have heard a man speak to-night in a man’s voice.  I mean to do that man the best service that I can.  These two years at Mequinez cannot mate with these two years at Tangier.  Knightley knows nothing now; he never shall know.  He believes his wife a second Penelope; he shall keep that belief.  There is a trench—­you called it very properly a grave.  In that trench Knightley will not hear though all Tangier scream its gossip in his ears.  I mean to give him his chance of death.”

“No, Major,” cried Scrope.  “Or listen!  Give me an equal chance.”

“Trelawney’s Regiment is not called out.  Again, Lieutenant, I fear me you will have the harder part of it.”

Shackleton repeated Scrope’s own words in all sincerity, and hurried off to his post.

Scrope was left alone in the guard-room.  A vision of the trench, twelve feet deep, eight yards wide, yawned before his eyes.  He closed them, but that made no difference; he still saw the trench.  In imagination he began to measure its width and depth.  Then he shook his head to rid himself of the picture, and went out on to the balcony.  His eyes turned instinctively to a house by the city wall, to a corner of the patio the house and the latticed shutter of a window just seen from the balcony.