ny lawns.
Flakes of dry snow came in the wind, but, cold as it was, a good many of
the old sailors were out pottering about their tiny gardens. Here a
glimpse of the river, or a church spire with many graves nestled under
it, came to break the monotony of the little houses.

The General looked without seeing. He was thinking of Sayers' young
wife--to be sure, she was not so young now: she must be well over
thirty--an innocent-faced creature, sitting at the piano in a white
gown, singing, while he and poor Sayers paced the garden-walk in the
twilight. Poor woman! how was she to bear it? Those knives, too! The
General ground his teeth in fury.

Then suddenly another aspect of the matter flashed upon him, so suddenly
that he almost leaped in his seat. Why, the --th Madras Light
Infantry--he remembered now--it was Langrishe's regiment. How
extraordinary that he should not have remembered before! It was the
regiment sent in pursuit. Langrishe would fall in for some fighting--he
would find it ready-made to his hand. Those little frontier wars were
endless things once they started. And what toll they took of precious
human lives! In the last one more young fellows of the General's
acquaintance had been killed than he liked to remember. Such deaths,
too! Even the bravest soldier might well shrink from the fiendish things
the Wazees were capable of.

Suddenly the train pulled up abruptly, so abruptly that for a few
seconds it quivered as a horse will after being hard-driven. The General
went to the window and looked out. The houses had been left behind and
around them was a country of grey mud-flats with the river dragging its
sluggish length through it like a great serpent. There was a windmill on
the horizon, breaking the uniform grey of land and river and sky. The
sky was heavy with coming snow.

The guard of the train was standing on the line, beating his two arms
against his breast to warm them, and answering stolidly the impatient
questions of the passengers.

"Obstruction on the line in front, sir," he said, addressing nobody in
particular. "Waggon broke away from the siding and got on to our track.
There's a breakdown gang doing its level best to get us clear. How long?
Can't say, I'm sure, sir. Matter of half an hour, maybe."

The matter of half an hour became a matter of three-quarters, of an
hour, of an hour and a quarter. The train grumbled from end to end. Here
and there a particularly indignant passenger got