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III

The corporal looked after his captain with an expression of mingled amazement, grief, and philosophy. He seemed to be saying to himself that there unfortunately were times, after all, when one could not rely upon the most reliable of men. When he returned to the group he found the captain bending over the girl and saying: “Why is it that you don’t want us to search upstairs?”

The girl’s head was buried in her crossed arms. Locks of her hair had escaped from their fastenings, and these fell upon her shoulder.

“Won’t you tell me?”

The corporal here winked again at the man next to him.

“Because,” the girl moaned—”because—there isn’t anybody up there.”

The captain at last said timidly: “Well, I’m afraid—I’m afraid we’ll have to—”

The girl sprang to her feet again, and implored him with her hands. She looked deep into his eyes with her glance, which was at this time like that of the fawn when it says to the hunter, “Have mercy upon me!”

These two stood regarding each other. The captain’s foot was on the bottom step, but he seemed to be shrinking. He wore an air of being deeply wretched and ashamed. There was a silence!

Suddenly the corporal said in a quick, low tone: “Look out, captain!”

All turned their eyes swiftly toward the head of the stairs. There had appeared there a youth in a grey uniform. He stood looking coolly down at them. No word was said by the troopers. The girl gave vent to a little wail of desolation, “O Harry!”

He began slowly to descend the stairs. His right arm was in a white sling, and there were some fresh blood-stains upon the cloth. His face was rigid and deathly pale, but his eyes flashed like lights. The girl was again moaning in an utterly dreary fashion, as the youth came slowly down toward the silent men in blue.

Six steps from the bottom of the flight he halted and said: “I reckon it’s me you’re looking for.”

The troopers had crowded forward a trifle and, posed in lithe, nervous attitudes, were watching him like cats. The captain remained unmoved. At the youth’s question he merely nodded his head and said, “Yes.”

The young man in grey looked down at the girl, and then, in the same even tone which now, however, seemed to vibrate with suppressed fury, he said: “And is that any reason why you should insult my sister?”

At this sentence, the girl intervened, desperately, between the young man in grey and the officer in blue.”Oh, don’t, Harry, don’t! He was good to me! He was good to me, Harry—indeed he was!”

The youth came on in his quiet, erect fashion, until the girl could have touched either of the men with her hand, for the captain still remained with his foot upon the first step. She continually repeated: “O Harry! O Harry!”

The youth in grey manoeuvred to glare into the captain’s face, first over one shoulder of the girl and then over the other. In a voice that rang like metal, he said: “You are armed and unwounded, while I have no weapons and am wounded; but—”

The captain had stepped back and sheathed his sabre. The eyes of these two men were gleaming fire, but otherwise the captain’s countenance was imperturbable. He said: “You are mistaken. You have no reason to—”

“You lie!”

All save the captain and the youth in grey started in an electric movement. These two words crackled in the air like shattered glass. There was a breathless silence.

The captain cleared his throat. His look at the youth contained a quality of singular and terrible ferocity, but he said in his stolid tone: “I don’t suppose you mean what you say now.”