hough alive.... He was the real thing, the ne plus ultra, the
I-stand-alone. The other fellas thought him the best of the best. He
was what my father used to call 'a wide man.' He was in and out of a
fight with a quirk at the corner of his mouth, as much as to say, 'I've
got the hang of this, and it's different from what I thought; but that
doesn't mean it hasn't got to be done, and done in style. It's the
has-to-be.' And when they got him where he breathes, he fished out the
little ivory pawn and put it on a stone at his head, to let it tell his
fellow-countrymen how he looked at it--that he was just a pawn in the
great game. The game had to be played, and won, and the winner had to
sacrifice his pawns. He was one of the sacrifices. Well, I'd like a
tombstone the same as that fella from New Zealand, if I could win it as
fair, and see as far."

Stafford raised his head with a smile of admiration. "Like the
ancients, like the Oriental Emperors to-day, he left his message. An
Alexander, with not one world conquered."

"I'm none so sure of that," was Barry's response. "A man that could put
such a hand on himself as he did has conquered a world. He didn't want
to go, but he went as so many have gone hereabouts. He wanted to stay,
but he went against his will, and--and I wish that the grub-hunters,
and tuft-hunters, and the blind greedy majority in England could get
hold of what he got hold of. Then life 'd be a different thing in
Thamesfontein and the little green islands."

"You were meant for a Savonarola or a St. Francis, my bold grenadier,"
said Stafford with a friendly nod.

"I was meant for anything that comes my way, and to do everything that
was hard enough."

Stafford waved a hand. "Isn't this hard enough--a handful of guns and
fifteen hundred men lost in a day, and nothing done that you can put in
an envelope and send 'to the old folks at 'ome?'"

"Well, that's all over, Colonel. Byng has turned the tide by turning
the Boer flank. I'm glad he's got that much out of his big shindy.
It'll do him more good than his millions. He was oozing away like a fat
old pine-tree in London town. He's got all his balsam in his bones now.
I bet he'll get more out of this thing than anybody, more that's worth
having. He doesn't want honours or promotion; he wants what 'd make his
wife sorry to be a widow; and he's getting it."

"Let us hope that his wife won't be put to the test," responded
Stafford evenly.

Barry looked