although the majority of these had served in His Majesty's Navy, and were by consequence the best marksmen. They weathered the winter, however; and a slight epidemic of whooping-cough, which broke out in the early spring, affected none of the Die-hards except the small bugler, and he took it in the mildest form. The men, following the Doctor's lead, began to talk more boastfully than ever. Only the Captain shook his head, and his eyes wore a wistful look, as though he listened continually for the footsteps of Nemesis—as, indeed, he did. The strain was breaking him. And in August, when word came from headquarters that, all danger of invasion being now at an end, the Looe Volunteer Artillery would be disbanded at the close of the year, he tried in vain to grieve. A year ago he would have wept in secret over the news. Now he went about with a solemn face and a bounding heart. A few months more and then—

And then, almost within sight of goal, Sergeant Fugler had broken down. Everyone knew that Fugler drank prodigiously; but so had his father and grandfather, and each of them had reached eighty. The fellow had always carried his liquor well enough, too. Captain Pond looked upon it almost as a betrayal.

"I don't know what folks' constitutions are coming to in these days," he kept muttering, on this morning of November the 3rd, as he sat on the muzzle of Thundering Meg and dangled his legs.

And then, glancing up, he saw the Doctor coming from the town along the shore-wall, and read evil news at once. For many of the Die-hards stopped the Doctor to question him, and stood gloomy as he passed on. It was popularly said in the two Looes, that "if the Doctor gave a man up, that man might as well curl up his toes then and there."

Catching sight of his Captain on the platform, the Doctor bent his steps thither, and they were slow and inelastic.

"Tell me the worst," said Captain Pond.

"The worst is that he's no better; no, the worst of all is that he knows he's no better. My friend, between ourselves, it's only a question of a day or two."

Silence followed for half a minute, the two officers avoiding each other's eyes.

"He has a curious wish," the Doctor resumed, still with his face averted and his gaze directed on the dull outline of Looe Island, a mile away. "He says he knows he's disgracing the Company: but he's anxious, all the same, to have a military funeral: says if you can promise this, he'll feel in a way that he's forgiven."

"He shall have it, of course."

"Ah, but that's not all. You remember, a couple of years back, when they had us down to Pendennis Castle for a week's drill, there was a funeral of a Sergeant-Major in the Loyal Meneage; and how the band played a sort of burial tune ahead of the body? Well, Fugler asked me if you couldn't manage this Dead March, as he calls it, as well. He can whistle the tune if you want to know it. It seems it made a great impression on him."

"Then the man must be wandering! How the dickens can we manage a Dead March without a band?—and we haven't even a fife and drum!"

"That's what I told him. I suppose we couldn't do anything with the church musicians."

"There's only one man in the Company who belongs to the gallery, and that's Uncle Issy Spettigew: and he plays the bass-viol. I doubt if you can play the Dead March on a bass-viol, and I'm morally certain you can't play it and walk with it too. I suppose we can't borrow a band from another Company?"

"What, and be the mock of the Duchy?—after all our pride! I fancy I see you going over to Troy and asking Browne for the loan of his band. 'Hullo!' he'd say, 'I thought you never had such a thing as a funeral over at Looe!' I can hear the fellow chuckle. But I wish something could be done, all the same. A trifle of pomp would draw folks' attention off our disappointment."

Captain Pond sighed and rose from the gun; for the bugle was sounding from the upper battery.

"Fall in, gentlemen, if you please!" he shouted. His politeness in addressing his Company might be envied even by the "Blues."

The Doctor formed them up and told them off along the sea-wall, as if for inspection. "Or-der arms!" "Fix bayonets!" "Shoul-der arms!" Then with a glance of inquiry at his Captain, who had fallen into a brown study, "Rear rank, take open order!"

"No, no," interposed the Captain, waking up and taking a guess at the sun's altitude in the grey heavens. "We're late this morning: better march 'em up to the battery at once."

Then, quickly re-forming them, he gave the word, "By the left! Quick march!" and the Die-hards swung steadily up the hill towards the platform where the four nine-pounders grinned defiance to the ships of France.

As a matter of fact, this battery stood out of reach of harm, with the compensating disadvantage of being able to inflict none. The reef below would infallibly wreck any ship that tried to approach within the point-blank range of some 270 yards, and its extreme range of ten times that distance was no protection to the haven, which lay round a sharp corner of the cliff. But the engineer's blunder was never a check upon the alacrity of the Die-hards, who cleaned, loaded, rammed home, primed, sighted, and blazed away with the precision of clockwork and the ardour of Britons, as though aware that the true strength of a nation lay not so much in the construction of her fortresses as in the spirit of her sons.

Captain Pond halted, re-formed his men upon the platform, and, drawing a key from his pocket, ordered Lieutenant Clogg to the store-hut, with Uncle Issy in attendance, to serve our the ammunition, rammers, sponges, water-buckets, etc.

"But the door's unlocked, sir," announced the lieutenant, with something like dismay.

"Unlocked!" echoed the Doctor.

The Captain blushed.

"I could have sworn, Doctor, I turned the key in the lock before leaving last Thursday. I think my head must be going. I've been sleeping badly of late—it's this worry about Fugler. However, I don't suppose anybody—"

A yell interrupted him. It came from Uncle Issy, who had entered the store-hut, and now emerged from it as if projected from a gun.

"THE FRENCH! THE FRENCH!"

For two terrible seconds the Die-hards eyed one another. Then someone in the rear rank whispered, "An ambush!" The two ranks began to waver—to melt. Uncle Issy, with head down and shoulders arched, was already stumbling down the slope towards the town. In another ten seconds the whole Company would be at his heels.

The Doctor saved their reputation. He was as pale as the rest; but a hasty remembrance of the cubic capacity of the store-hut told him that the number of Frenchmen in ambush there could hardly be more than half a dozen.

"Halt!" he shouted; and Captain Pond shouted "Halt!" too, adding, "There'll be heaps of time to run when we find out what's the matter."

The Die-hards hung, still wavering, upon the edge of the platform.

"For my part," the Doctor declared, "I don't believe there's anybody inside."

"But there is, Doctor! for I saw him myself just as Uncle Issy called out," said the second lieutenant.

"Was it only one man that you saw?" demanded Captain Pond.

"That's all. You see, it was this way: Uncle Issy stepped fore, with me a couple of paces behind him thinking of nothing so little as bloodshed and danger. If you'll believe me, these things was the very last in my thoughts. Uncle Issy rolls aside the powder-cask, and what do I behold but a man ducking down behind it! 'He's firing the powder,' thinks I, 'and here endeth William George Clogg!' So I shut my eyes, not willing to see my gay life whisked away in little portions; though I feared it must come. And then I felt Uncle Issy flee past me like the wind. But I kept my eyes tight till I heard the Doctor here saying there wasn't anybody inside. If you ask me what I think about the whole matter, I say, putting one thing with another, that 'tis most likely some poor chap taking shelter