about and go straight back into the wood."
"And what did you think of that?" said the colonel, with a half smile.
"I thought it was shacrifice, sorr."
"What do you mean?" said the colonel sharply.
"I mane, sorr," said Cassidy stoutly, "that he was givin' up hisself and
his sister for that young leddy."
The colonel looked at the sergeant. "Ask Mr. Forsyth to come to me
privately, and return here with him."
As darkness fell, some half a dozen dismounted troopers, headed by
Forsyth and Cassidy, passed quietly out of the lower gate and entered
the wood. An hour later the colonel was summoned from the dinner table,
and the guests heard the quick rattle of a wagon turning out of the road
gate--but the colonel did not return. An indefinable uneasiness crept
over the little party, which reached its climax in the summoning of the
other officers, and the sudden flashing out of news. The reconnoitring
party had found the dead bodies of Peter Atherly and his sister on the
plains at the edge of the empty wood.
The women were gathered in the commandant's quarters, and for the
moment seemed to have been forgotten. The officers' wives talked with
professional sympathy and disciplined quiet; the English ladies were
equally sympathetic, but collected. Lady Elfrida, rather white, but
patient, asked a few questions in a voice whose contralto was rather
deepened. One and all wished to "do something"--anything "to help"--and
one and all rebelled that the colonel had begged them to remain within
doors. There was an occasional quick step on the veranda, or the
clatter of a hoof on the parade, a continued but subdued murmur from the
whitewashed barracks, but everywhere a sense of keen restraint.
When they emerged on the veranda again, the whole aspect of the garrison
seemed to have changed in that brief time. In the faint moonlight they
could see motionless files of troopers filling the parade, the officers
in belted tunics and slouched hats,--but apparently not the same men;
the half lounging ease and lazy dandyism gone, a grim tension in all
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