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‘Tell him to go home,’ said Bill, still peering into the works of the clock. ‘Tell him we’ve been there.’ He chuckled a moment, looked up, and addressed himself to Corporal Sam. ‘What regiment?’

‘The Royals.’

The two burst out laughing scornfully. ‘Don’t wonder you cover it up,’ said the first rifleman.

Corporal Sam pulled off his poncho. ‘I’d offer to fight the both of you,’ he said, ‘but ’tis time wasted with a couple of white-livers that don’t dare fetch a poor child across a roadway. Let me go by; you‘ll keep, anyway.’

‘Now look here, sonny–‘ The first rifleman blocked his road. ‘I don’t bear no malice for a word spoken in anger: so stand quiet and take my advice. That house isn’t goin’ to take fire. ‘Cos why? ‘Cos as Bill says, we’ve been there–there and in the next house, now burnin’–and we know. ‘Cos before leavin’–the night before last it was–some of our boys set two barrels o’ powder somewheres in the next house, on the ground floor, with a slow match. That’s why we left; though, as it happened, the match missed fire. But the powder’s there, and if you’ll wait a few minutes now you’ll not be disapp’inted.’

‘You left the child behind!’

‘Well, we left in a hurry, as I tell you, and somehow in the hurry nobody brought him along. I’m sorry for the poor little devil, too.’ The fellow swung about. ‘See him there at the window, now! If you want him put out of his pain–‘

He lifted his rifle. Corporal Sam made a clutch at his arm to drag it down, and in the scuffle both men swayed out upon the roadway. And with that, or a moment later, he felt the rifleman slip down between his arms, and saw the blood gush from his mouth as he collapsed on the cobbles.

Corporal Sam heard the man Bill shout a furious oath, cast one puzzled look up the roadway towards the convent, saw the flashes jetting from its high wall, and raced across unscathed. A bullet sang past his ear as he found the gate and hurled himself into the garden. It was almost dark here, but dark only for a moment. . . . For as he caught sight of a flight of steps leading to a narrow doorway, and ran for them–and even as he set foot on the lowest–of a sudden the earth heaved under him, seemed to catch him up in a sheet of flame, and flung him backwards–backwards and flat on his back, into a clump of laurels.

Slowly he picked himself up. The sky was dark now; but, marvellous to say, the house stood. The mass of it yet loomed over the laurels. Yes, and a light showed under the door at the head of the steps. He groped his way up and pushed the door open.

The light came through a rent in the opposite wall, and on the edge of this jagged hole some thin laths were just bursting into a blaze. He rushed across the room to beat out the flame, and this was easily done; but, as he did it, he caught sight of a woman’s body, stretched along the floor by the fireplace, and of a child cowering in the corner, watching him.

‘Come and help, little one,’ said Corporal Sam, still beating at the laths.

The child understood no English, and moreover was too small to help. But it seemed that the corporal’s voice emboldened him, for he drew near and stood watching.

‘Who did this, little one?’ asked Corporal Sam, nodding towards the corpse, as he rubbed the charred dust from his hands.

For a while the child stared at him, not comprehending; but by-and-by pointed beneath the table and then back at its mother.

The corporal walked to the table, stooped, and drew from under it a rifle and a pouch half-filled with cartridges.