have been imposed on him by the general.  His last edifying words, according to my informant, were these:  `And there goes the damned old donkey with the end of his sword knocked off.  I wish it was his head.’  You will remark that everyone seems to have noticed this detail about the broken sword blade, though most people regard it somewhat more reverently than did the late Colonel Clancy.  And now for the third fragment.”

Their path through the woodland began to go upward, and the speaker paused a little for breath before he went on.  Then he continued in the same business-like tone: 

“Only a month or two ago a certain Brazilian official died in England, having quarrelled with Olivier and left his country.  He was a well-known figure both here and on the Continent, a Spaniard named Espado; I knew him myself, a yellow-faced old dandy, with a hooked nose.  For various private reasons I had permission to see the documents he had left; he was a Catholic, of course, and I had been with him towards the end.  There was nothing of his that lit up any corner of the black St. Clare business, except five or six common exercise books filled with the diary of some English soldier.  I can only suppose that it was found by the Brazilians on one of those that fell.  Anyhow, it stopped abruptly the night before the battle.

“But the account of that last day in the poor fellow’s life was certainly worth reading.  I have it on me; but it’s too dark to read it here, and I will give you a resume.  The first part of that entry is full of jokes, evidently flung about among the men, about somebody called the Vulture.  It does not seem as if this person, whoever he was, was one of themselves, nor even an Englishman; neither is he exactly spoken of as one of the enemy.  It sounds rather as if he were some local go-between and non-combatant; perhaps a guide or a journalist.  He has been closeted with old Colonel Clancy; but is more often seen talking to the major.  Indeed, the major is somewhat prominent in this soldier’s narrative; a lean, dark-haired man, apparently, of the name of Murray—­a north of Ireland man and a Puritan.  There are continual jests about the contrast between this Ulsterman’s austerity and the conviviality of Colonel Clancy.  There is also some joke about the Vulture wearing bright-coloured clothes.

“But all these levities are scattered by what may well be called the note of a bugle.  Behind the English camp and almost parallel to the river ran one of the few great roads of that district.  Westward the road curved round towards the river, which it crossed by the bridge before mentioned.  To the east the road swept backwards into the wilds, and some two miles along it was the next English outpost.  From this direction there came along the road that evening a glitter and clatter of light cavalry, in which even the simple diarist could recognise with astonishment the general with his staff.  He