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“Do I?” said Carlyon. He got up deliberately and intercepted Derrick. “Just stop tramping,” he said, with sudden sternness, “and listen to me! You have your wound alone to thank for keeping you out of the worst mess you ever got into. If you hadn’t gone back in a hospital truck, you would have gone back under escort. Do you understand that?”

“Why?” flashed Derrick.

“Why?” echoed Carlyon, striking him abruptly on the shoulder. “Tell me your own opinion of a hot-headed, meddling young fool who not only got into mischief himself at a most critical moment, but led half-a-score of valuable men into what was practically a death-trap, for the sake of, I suppose he would call it, an hour’s sport. On my soul, Derrick,” he ended, with a species of quiet vigour that carried considerable weight behind it, “if you weren’t such a skeleton I’d give you a sound thrashing for your sins. As it is, you will be wise to get off that high horse of yours and take a back seat. I never have put up with this sort of thing from you. And I never mean to.”

Derrick had no answer ready. He stood still, considering these things.

Colonel Carlyon turned his back on him and cut the end of a cigar. “Do you grasp my meaning?” he enquired at length, as Derrick remained silent.

Derrick moved to a chair and sat down. Somehow Carlyon had taken the backbone out of his indignation. He spoke at last, but without anger. “Even if it were as you say,” he said, “I don’t consider you treated me decently.”

Carlyon suddenly laughed. “Even if by some odd chance I have actually spoken the truth,” he said, “I shall not, and do not, feel called upon to justify my action for your benefit.”

“I think you owe me that,” Derrick said quickly.

“I disagree with you,” Carlyon rejoined. “I owe you nothing whatever except the aforementioned thrashing which must, unfortunately, under the circumstances, remain a debt for the present.”

Derrick leant forward suddenly

“Stop rotting, Carlyon!” he said, with impulsive earnestness. “I can’t help talking seriously. You didn’t know, surely, what a tight fix we were in? You couldn’t have intended us to–to–die in the dark like that?”

“Intended!” said Carlyon sharply. “I never intended you to occupy that position at all, remember.”

“Yes; but–since we were in that position, since–if you choose to put it so–I exceeded all bounds and intentions and took those splendid little Goorkhas into a death-trap; I may have been a headstrong, idiotic fool to do it; but, granted all that, you did not deliberately and knowingly leave us to be massacred? You couldn’t have done actually that.”

Carlyon laid his cigar-case on the table at Derrick’s elbow, and lighted his own cigar with great deliberation.

“You may remember, Dick,” he said quietly, after a pause, “that once upon a time you wrote–and published–a book. It had its merits and it had its faults. But a fool of a critic took it into his head to give you a thorough slating. You were furious, weren’t you? I remember giving you a bit of sound advice over that book. Probably you have forgotten it. But it chances to be one of the guiding principles of my life. It is this: Never answer your critics! Go straight ahead!”

He paused.

“I remember,” said Derrick. “Well?”

“Well,” said Carlyon gravely, “that is what I have done all my life, what I mean to do now. You are in full possession of the facts of the case. You have defined my position fairly accurately. I did know you were in an impossible corner. I did know that you and the men with you were in all probability doomed. And–I did not think good to send a rescue. You do not understand the game of war. You merely went in for it for the sake of sport, I for the sake of the stakes. There is a difference. More than that I do not mean to say.”