us hope it will not come to the
worst. Good night."

"Good night," I said, as he walked away; "however can it be a good night
for me again?"

Then, after a weary time, I rose, and began to walk up and down my
quarters with the question always before me--

"Suppose that man dies, what will you do?"

Very little sleep came to me that night, and at dawn I sent a man for
news, and my servant came back looking horrified.

"Oh, mastah!" he whispered, "dey say Private Smith going to die."

CHAPTER NINE.

Private Smith did not die, but he had a month in hospital for his
punishment, while mine was confined to a severe reprimand.

I was not happy at Rambagh, for though the other officers were pleasant
enough with me, Barton always seemed to be sneering at my efforts, and
was ready to utter some disparaging remark. There was one consolation,
however: the others did not seem to like him, so that it did not look as
if it were all my fault. I noticed one thing, though, and it was this:
Barton was always ready to say disparaging things about Brace; but the
latter never retaliated, and always refrained from mentioning, save in
the most general way, his brother-officer's name.

I was getting on fast, I suppose, for I felt less nervous and more at
home with the troop. The various words of command had ceased to be a
puzzle, and when I had orders to give, I was beginning to be able to use
my voice in a penetrating, decisive way, and did not feel ashamed of it
when I heard my words ring out clearly, and not as if they were jerked
or bumped out by the motion of my horse.

Then, too, I had got on so far that I did not mind standing close to the
brass field-pieces when they were fired, and the discharge had ceased to
make my ears ring for hours after, and feel deaf. At the first shots I
heard, I could not help wondering whether the piece I stood by would
burst, and kill or wound us with a jagged fragment of brass. While now
the dashing gallop, with the guns leaping and bounding over the plain,
and the men on the limbers holding on with both hands to keep from being
jerked off, had grown exhilarating and full of excitement. There was
always the feeling that one must have a bad fall, and sometimes a horse
would go down, and a man be hurt more or less seriously; but somehow I
always escaped. And one morning I went back to breakfast after a heavy
gallop, tired, but prouder than I had ever before felt in my life, for I
had