Scrope bowed to the Major and drew back from the table.  The other officers shuffled and moved in a welcome relief from the strain of their expectancy, and Knightley’s thoughts were diverted by Shackleton’s words to a quite different subject.  For he picked with his fingers at the Moorish robe he wore and “I too wore the King’s uniform,” he pleaded wistfully.

“And shall do so again, thank God,” responded the Major heartily.

Knightley started up from his chair; his face lightened unaccountably.

“You mean that?” he asked eagerly.  “Yes, yes, you mean it!  Then let it be to-night—­now—­even before I sup.  As long as I wear these chains, as long as I wear this dress, I can feel the driver’s whip curl about my shoulders.”  He parted the robe as he spoke, and showed that underneath he wore only a coarse sack which reached to his knees, with a hole cut in it for his head.

“True, you have worn the chains too long,” said the Major.  “I should have had them knocked off before, but—­” he paused for a second, “but your coming so surprised me that of a truth I forgot,” he continued lamely.  Then he turned to Tessin.  “See to it, Tessin!  Ensign Barbour of the Tangier Foot was killed to-day.  He was quartered in the Main-Guard.  Take Knightley to his quarters and see what you can do.  By the way, Knightley, there’s a question I should have put to you before.  By what road did you come in?”

“Down Teviot Hill past the Henrietta Fort.  The Moors brought me down from Mequinez to interpret between them and their prisoners.  I escaped last night.”

“Past the Henrietta Fort?” replied the Major.  “Then you can help us, for that way we make our sortie.”

“To relieve the Charles Fort?” said Knightley.  “I guessed the Charles Fort was surrounded, for I heard one man on the Tangier wall shouting through a speaking trumpet to the Charles Fort garrison.  But it will not be easy to relieve them.  The Moors are entrenched between.  There are three trenches.  I should never have crawled through them, but that I stripped a dead Moor of his robe.”

“Three trenches,” said Tessin, with a shrug of the shoulders.

“Yes, three.  The two nearest to Tangier may be carried.  But the third—­it is deep, twelve feet at the least, and wide, at the least eight yards.  The sides are steep and slippery with the rain.”

“A grave, then,” said Scrope carelessly; “a grave that will hold many before the evening falls.  It is well they made it wide and deep enough.”

The sombre words knocked upon every heart like a blow on a door behind which conspirators are plotting.  The Major was the first to recover his speech.

“Curse your tongue, Scrope!” he said angrily.  “Let who will lie in your grave when the evening falls.  Before that time comes, we’ll show these Moors so fine a powder-play as shall glut some of them to all eternity. Bon chat, bon rat; we are not made of jelly.  Tessin, see to Knightley.”