walking and turning like an automaton, he was suddenly
fast asleep and dreaming for quite a minute, when he gave a violent
start, waking himself, protesting loudly against a charge made against
him, and all strangely mixed up the imaginary and the real.

"Swear I wasn't, Sergeant!" he cried angrily. "Look for yerself.--
Didn't yer see, pardners? I was walking up and down like a clockwork
himidge.--Sleep at my post? Me sleep at my post? Wish I may die if I
do such a thing. It's the old game. Yer allus 'ated me, Sergeant, from
the very first, and--Phew! Here! What's the matter? I've caught
something, and it's got me in the nut. I'm going off my chump."

Poor Gedge stood with his hands clasped to his forehead, staring wildly
before him.

"Blest if I wasn't dreaming!" he said wonderingly. "Ain't took bad, am
I? Thought old Gee come and pounced upon me, and said I was sleepin' on
duty. And it's a fack. It's as true as true; I was fast asleep;
leastwise I was up'ards. Legs couldn't ha' been, because they'd ha'
laid down. Oh! this here won't do. It was being on dooty without
arms."

Drawing himself up, he snatched his bayonet from its scabbard, and
resumed his march, going off last asleep again; but this time the
cessation of consciousness descended as it were right below the
waist-belt and began to steal down his legs, whose movements became
slower and slower, hips, then knees, stiffening; and then, as the drowsy
god's work attacked his ankles, his whole body became rigid, and he
stood as if he had been gradually frozen stiff for quite a minute, when
it seemed as if something touched him, and he sprang into wakefulness
again, and went on with his march up and down.

"Oh, it's horrid!" he said piteously. "Of course. That'll do it."

He sheathed his bayonet, and catching up his rifle, went through the
regular forms as if receiving orders: he grounded arms; then drew and
fixed bayonet, shouldered arms, and began the march again.

"That's done it," he said. "Reg'larly woke up now. S'pose a fellow
can't quite do without sleep, unless he got used to it, like the chap's
'oss, only he died when he'd got used to living upon one eat a day. Rum
thing, sleep, though. I allus was a good un to sleep. Sleep anywhere;
but I didn't know I was so clever as to sleep standing up. Wonder
whether I could sleep on one leg. Might do it on my head. Often said I
could do anything on my head. There, it's a-coming on a