t at last he began to
talk. The ugly rumour spread. It even reached my battery which was a
hundred miles away; for Johnny Dacre, one of my subs, had a brother in
Boyce's old regiment. For my own part I scouted the story as soon as I
heard it, and I withered up young Dacre for daring to bring such
abominable slander within my Rhadamanthine sphere. I dismissed the
calumny from my mind. Providentially, (as I heard later), the news came
of Boyce's "mention," and Somers was set down as a liar. The poor devil
was had up before the Colonel and being an imaginative and nervous man
denied the truth of the rumour and by dexterous wriggling managed to
exculpate himself from the charge of being its originator.

I must, parenthetically, crave indulgence for these apparently
irrelevant details. But as, in this chronicle, I am mainly concerned
with the career of Leonard Boyce, I have no option but to give them.
They are necessary for a conception of the character of a remarkable
man to whom I have every reason and every honourable desire to render
justice. It is necessary, too, that I should state clearly the manner
in which I happened to learn the facts of the affair at Vilboek's Farm,
for I should not like you to think that I have given a credulous ear to
idle slander.

It was in Cape Town, whither I had been despatched, on a false alarm of
enteric. I was walking with Johnny Dacre up Adderley Street, dun with
kahki, when he met his brother Reginald, who was promptly introduced to
Johnny's second in command. Reggie was off to hospital to see one of
his men who had been badly hurt.

"It's the chap," he said to his brother, "who was with Boyce through
that shady affair at Vilboek's Farm."

"I don't know why you call it a shady affair," said I, somewhat acidly.
"I know Captain Boyce--he is a near neighbour of mine at home--and he
has proved himself to be a gallant officer and a brave man."

The young fellow reddened. "I'm awfully sorry, sir. I withdraw the word
'shady.' But this poor chap has something on his mind, and everyone has
a down on him. He led a dog's life till he was knocked out, and he has
been leading a worse one since. I don't call it fair." He looked at me
squarely out of his young blue eyes--the lucky devil, he is commanding
his regiment now in Flanders, with the D.S.O. ribbon on his tunic.
"Will you come with me and see him, sir?"

"Certainly," said I, for I had nothing to do, and the boy's earnestness
impressed