death-stories, however, made him seek the men’s society. He learnt much more than he had bargained for; and in this manner. It was on the last night before the regiment entrained to the front. The barracks were stripped of everything movable, and the men were too excited to sleep. The bare walls gave out a heavy hospital smell of chloride of lime.

‘And what,’ said Mulcahy in an awe-stricken whisper, after some conversation on the eternal subject, ‘are you going to do to me, Dan?’ This might have been the language of an able conspirator conciliating a weak spirit.

‘You’ll see,’ said Dan grimly, turning over in his cot, ‘or I rather shud say you’ll not see.’

This was hardly the language of a weak spirit. Mulcahy shook under the bed-clothes.

‘Be easy with him,’ put in Egan from the next cot. ‘He has got his chanst o’ goin’ clean. Listen Mulcahy, all we want is for the good sake of the regiment that you take your death standing up, as a man shud. There’s be heaps an’ heaps of enemy—plenshus heaps. Go there an’ do all you can and die decent. You’ll die with a good name there. ’Tis not a hard thing considerin’.’

Again Mulcahy shivered.

‘An’ how could a man wish to die better than fightin’,’ added Dan consolingly.

‘And if I won’t,’ said the corporal in a dry whisper.

‘There’ll be a dale of smoke,’ returned Dan, sitting up and ticking off the situation on his fingers, ‘sure to be, an’ the noise of the firin’ ’ll be tremenjus, an’ we’ll be running about up and down, the regiment will. But we, Horse and I—we’ll stay by you, Mulcahy, and never let you go. Maybe there’ll be an accident.’

‘It’s playing it low on me. Let me go. For pity’s sake let me go. I never did you harm, and—and I stood you as much beer as I could. Oh, don’t be hard on me, Dan! You are—you were in it too. You won’t kill me up there, will you?’

‘I’m not thinkin’ of the treason; though you shud be glad any honest boys drank with you. It’s for the regiment. We can’t have the shame o’ you bringin’ shame on us. You went to the doctor quiet as a sick cat to get and stay behind an’ live with the women at the depôt—you that wanted us to run to the sea in wolf-packs like the rebels none of your black blood dared to be! But we knew about your goin’ to the doctor, for he told in mess, and it’s all over the regiment. Bein’, as we are, your best friends, we didn’t allow any one to molest you yet. We will see to you ourselves. Fight which you will—us or the enemy—you’ll never lie in that cot again, and there’s more glory and maybe less kicks from fightin’ the enemy. That’s fair speakin’.’

‘And he told us by word of mouth to go and join with the niggers—you’ve forgotten that, Dan,’ said Horse Egan, to justify sentence.

‘What’s the use of plaguin’ the man. One shot pays for all. Sleep ye sound, Mulcahy. But you onderstand, do ye not?’

Mulcahy for some weeks understood very little of anything at all save that ever at his elbow, in camp, or at parade, stood two big men with soft voices adjuring him to commit hari-kari lest a worse thing should happen—to die for the honour of the regiment in decency among the nearest knives. But Mulcahy dreaded death. He remembered certain things that priests had said in his infancy, and his mother—not the one at New York—starting from her sleep with shrieks to pray for a husband’s soul in torment. It is well to be of a cultured intelligence, but in time of trouble the weak human mind returns to the creed it sucked in at the breast, and if that creed be not a pretty one trouble follows. Also, the death he would have to face would be physically painful. Most conspirators have large imaginations. Mulcahy could see himself,