n their sconces and through a blue haze the Major espied
Sir Benjamin asprawl in his chair, his fine coat wine-splashed, his
great peruke obscuring one eye, snoring gently. Hard by, Alvaston lay
forward across the table, his face pillowed upon a plate, deep-plunged
in stertorous slumber while the Colonel, sitting opposite, leaned back
in his chair and stared up solemnly at the raftered ceiling. Candles
were guttering to their end, the long chamber, the inn itself seemed
strangely silent and the broad casement already glimmered with the dawn.

"Jack," said the Colonel suddenly, "'tis odd--'tis devilish odd I vow
'tis, but place feels curst--empty!" The Major glanced around the
disordered chamber and shivered. "Jack, here's you and here's me--very
well! Yonder's Sir Benjamin and Lord Alvaston--very well again! But
question is--where's t'others?"

"Why I think, I rather think George, they're under the table."

Hereupon the Colonel made as if to stoop down and look but thought
better of it, and stretching out a foot instead, touched something soft
and nodded solemnly:

"B'gad Jack--so they are!" said he and sat staring up at the rafters
again while the pallid dawn grew brighter at the window.

"Man Jack," he went on with a beaming smile, "'tis a goodish spell
since we had an all-night bout together. Last time I mind was in
Brabant at----" The Colonel sat up suddenly, staring through the
casement where, in the sickly light of dawn, stood a figure which
paused opposite the window to stare up at the sleeping inn, and was
gone.

"Refuse me!" exclaimed the Colonel, still staring wide of eye,
"Jack--did ye see it?"

"Aye, George!"

"Then Jack if we're not drunk we ought to be--but drunk or no, we've
seen a ghost!"

"Whose, George?"

"Why, the spirit of that ravishing satyr, that black rogue you killed
years ago in Flanders--Effingham, by Gad!"

"Ah!" sighed the Major.

CHAPTER XXVII

HOW THE SERGEANT RECOUNTED AN OLD STORY

Viscount Merivale sat alone in the hutch-like sentry-box; his handsome
face was unduly grave, his brow care-worn and he bit at his carefully
tended nails, which last was a thing in him quite phenomenal.

All at once he clenched his fist and smote it softly on the table:

"Damn him!" he muttered and sat scowling at his torn nails. "Ha,
madam, it seems you are like to be the death o' me yet! ... O Woman!
... Howbeit, fight him I will!" Here, chancing to lift his frowning
gaz