Major Vigoureux

owed this habit originally to a clear conscience, and although (as the reader

ance agree that it is so.) Mr. Fossell preserved an impassive, inscrutable face; but every time the Commandant ventured a new argument Mr. Fossell's high, bald head twinkled and suddenly changed colour like a chameleon. It was green, it was violet, it was bathed in a soft roseate glow like an Alpine peak at sunset; and still while he argued the Commandant was forced to dodge his body about lest Mr. Fossell should catch sight of a mirror fixed in the opposite wal

ake, and sat up blinking at Sergeant Archelaus, who sto

?" asked Serg

full possession of his senses. "Of course, I heard it.

u," said Sergeant Archelaus, using the familiarity

ip? W

ment, which the Commandant, following his custom,

St. Ann's pilots ha'n't found her. The gun

Commandant, staring ab

Sergeant Archelaus, an

d flung back the bed-clothes and was th

a thicker in

had a

Set it down to habit. I've known the time when the sound of a gun would have fetched forty men out of the Barracks

ply, putting on his trousers. "Get on your co

er, however, was not the ringer. The Commandant had scarcely slipped on his fatigue jacket, and begun to search in the

ming before you can sound th' alarm. Reach down the bugl

g of old pride. The alarm would reach the town, and the town would know that the garrison had not been caught napping. He snatched at the

eep sounding, Treac

nes, all so familiar that relying on tread alone (as in fact they did) they could not miss their way. Below them, along the quay, and on the causeway at the head of it-voices were calling and lights moving; but the fog reduced the shouts to a twitter, as of birds, and the t

activities that night, something may be forgiven him; as something may be forgive

d to blow his best; and there, at the end of the causeway, Sir C?sar ran into them-ran straight into the

geant Archelaus, cooll

-this is work to-night, work for men! And you"-catching sight of the Comm

swer, the Lord Proprietor had gone his way, waving his to

as a sl

Commandant. The two sergeants heard his voice dr

ir," answered Se

ap then, and

meaning, sir?" asked

tain

nt of sea running, sir,

as much th

g in the Commandant's voic

the life-boat. Sergeant Archelaus pulled stroke, and Sergeant Treacher bow. The

ut this they left behind; it was in store, and would have been worse than useless). They pulled out into a fog so thick that only by intervals

harp cry of warning-for the Commandant's gaze was fastened forward-had barely time to jerk the boat's head round and avoid being cut down. Then, dropping his paddle, he made a grab at the painter and flung it, calling out to the lifeboat's crew to catch and make fast. But either he was a moment too late in flinging, or the lifeboatmen, the

rgeant Archelaus. "There goes a couple o

g?" retorted Treacher. "Pretty pair of e

ant ordered. "They'd have caught

rried a promise with it, definitely clear and shining, of enterprise and reward, of adventure, achievement, fame, had sunk by degrees to a dull repetition calling him from sleep to perform the spiritless daily round. He did not sigh that the definite vision had faded; it happened so, may be, to most men, though not to all. To most men, it might be, their fate played the crimp; they followed t

issed; but twenty years ago men would have hailed his will to help. Now he was useless, negligible. In an ordinary way these neighbours of his might disguise their knowledge, through politeness or

s and moanings of the wind. He had reckoned that he was bending around shore to the south of the roadstead, heading gradually for St. Lide's Sound and giving the rocks on his port hand a wide berth; when of a sudden Archelaus called out, and he spied a grey li

w, minute after minute, but the sea beyond the edge of the boat's gunwale, heaving up and sliding astern as it caught the shine of the lantern. The lantern shone al

ct. The two men had been pulling for an hour, and the Commandant saw that they were tired-tired and very old. He recognised it at first with a

he older; take the tiller here a

quished his paddle with a grunt of exhaustion, and the Commandant stood up to take it, laying both h

paddle and his face to the bows, saw or felt it part suddenly, and through the

ng. High on the bridge-but the bridge soared into heaven-a pilot's voice called out in the Island tongue. As the great bows glided by, missing the boat by a few yards, the three men

ort way abaft her red port-light. A murmur of talk went with the faces, as it were a stream rippling by, and mingled with the splash of water pouring over-side from the pumps. It sounded cheerfully, and from the voic

s pilots. "He picked her up not twenty furlongs from Hell-deeps

ot near enough to miss it, being where sh

ain; "for Reub himself called dow

ch in ten minutes a steel-built five-master, of 1,200 tons, had melted to nothing before their eyes-"the rivets," as Archelaus put it, "flying out of her like shirt buttons." But that had happened on one of the outermost reefs, beyond the Off Islands, far down by the Monk Light. How the Milo, no matter from what quarter approaching, had threaded her way by the Hell-deeps was to him a mystery of myst

y Mr. Rogers shouted up to the captain to lower his ladder. He and his chief boatman mounted first, with a little man named Pengelly, a custom's official, who happened to make one of the lifeboat's crew-for the Mil

. He would remain below, he said, and lo

th questions. The Islanders are a child-like race, and from his post at the foot of the deserted accommodation l

e gray wall-sides of the liner. Yes, the ship was solid, and yet he could not believe but that she b

eyes to it in the foggy darkness, the Commandant saw a solitary fi

nce, and came swiftly down a step or t

she asked in a quick whispe

adam," he stammered

emaining steps and set her foot lightly on

wore a dark cloak of fur and was bare-headed. She spoke in a sort of m

eating herself in the stern sheets. "They can easily

ts-and took the tiller. "I can steer you to the quay," she said, and leaning forward

d the paddles into the thole pins