h a light, springy step.

It was all very simple and unadventurous, but everyone seemed to enjoy
it--the men whose march had only been from Ratcham and those whose dusty
clothes told of the many long miles they had tramped since early morn.

The crowd was greater than ever when the town was reached again, the
205th's band leading them and making the streets echo to the strains of
"The British Grenadiers." There were loud bursts of cheering, too, now,
and the traffic was stopped as the band was halted near the gates of the
High Barracks to play the 310th in.

As everyone does not know, perhaps, so as to keep up a sustained
military march, the brass band is divided into two parts, one of which
will play through certain portions of the melody, which is then taken up
by the second part, while the first regains breath, ready to take its
turn again and to join in unison with the other in some _forte_ passage.

Close up to the High Barrack gates, then, the bandsmen stood upon the
pavement, while the companies of the 310th marched up the road. Dick
Smithson was resting with the men of his side, while the others were
concluding their part. The next minute Dick was in the act of raising
his piccolo to his lips to shower out a burst of its bright bird-like
music, while _tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp_, the men marched by, when his
nerves suddenly seemed to be paralysed, his muscles refused to act, and
he stood holding the tiny bright-keyed flute level with his chin,
staring hard at a young officer, weary, covered with chalky dust, and
with a set supercilious smile upon his lips, as he turned his eyes left
to stare contemptuously at the young bandsman he passed.

It was almost momentary, just taking as long as a man walking at a
steady pace would occupy. Then he was by, leaving Dick staring after
him as if in a cataleptic fit, his face full of terror and despair.

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.

HAUNTED.

For nearly a minute Dick did not stir, but stood staring, with eyes wide
open, lips apart, and the piccolo held still on a level with his chin.

Then, as the figure of the officer was hidden by the marching men, the
young musician uttered a low, hoarse sound--the pent-up breath escaping
from his lungs. The while the buildings opposite, the crowd of people
in doorways and at windows, even the marching men steadily tramping by,
seemed to undulate, rise, and then slowly glide round and round, till he
gave a violent start; for a