knew that he was being victimized by a chance impulse of the Colonel's.
But he ignored all that. He was coldly angry and resentful. Utterly
forgetting his fatigue, he inimically surveyed the Colonel's squat,
shining figure in the cavalry coat, a pyramid of which the apex was a
round head surmounted by a dripping cap.

"Yes, sir," he snapped.

By rights the tyrant ought to have rolled off his horse dead. But
Colonel Hullocher was not thus vulnerable. He could give glance for
glance with perhaps any human being on earth, and indeed thought little
more of subalterns than of rabbits.

He finished, after a pause:

"You will be good enough, Major, to let this officer report to me
personally when he has found the convoy."

"Certainly, sir."

The horse bounded away, scattering the group.

Rather less than half an hour later George had five men (including his
own servant and Resmith's) and six lanterns round a cask, on the top of
which was his map. There were six possible variations of route to
Kingswood Station, and he explained them all, allotting one to each man
and keeping one for himself. He could detect the men exchanging looks,
but what the looks signified he could not tell. He gave instructions
that everybody should go forward until either discovering the convoy or
reaching Kingswood. He said with a positive air of conviction that by
this means the convoy could not fail to be discovered. The men received
the statement with strict agnosticism; they could not see things with
the eye of faith, fortified though they were with tea and tinned meats.
An offered reward of ten shillings to the man who should hit on the
convoy did not appreciably inspirit them. George himself was of course
not a bit convinced by his own argument, and had not the slightest
expectation that the convoy would be found. The map, which the breeze
lifted and upon which the rain drummed, seemed to be entirely
unconnected with the actual facts of the earth's surface. The party
mounted tired, unwilling horses and filed off. Some soldiers in the
darkness, watching the string of lanterns, gave a half-ironical
'Hurrah.' One by one, as the tracks bifurcated, George dispatched his
men, with renewed insistent advice, and at last he and his horse were
alone on the Downs.

His clothes were exceedingly heavy with all the moisture they had
imbibed. Repose had mitigated his fatigue, but every slow, slouching
step of the horse intensified it again--and at a t