"I mean--well--" I stammered. And then I plunged in. "I must know," I
said. "Was it Lord Kitchener in flesh and blood? Had he been a prisoner
in Germany and escaped? Or was it--his ghost?"

The old lion rubbed his cheek consideringly. "Ah, there you have me,"
and he smiled. "Didn't I tell you this was a tale which could be told to
few people?" he demanded. "'Flesh and blood'--ah, that's what I can't
tell you. But--himself? Those people, the immense crowd which saw him
and recognized him, they knew. Afterwards they begged the question. The
papers were full of a remarkable speech made by an unknown officer who
strikingly resembled Kitchener. That's the way they got out of it. But
those people knew, that day. There wasn't any doubt in their minds when
that roar of his name went up. They knew! But people are ashamed to own
to the supernatural. And yet it's all around us," mused General
Cochrane.

"Could it have been--did you ever think--" I began, and dared not go on.

"Did I ever think what, child?" repeated the old officer, with his
autocratic friendliness. "Out with it. You and I are having a
truth-feast."

"Well, then," I said, "if you won't be angry--"

"I won't. Come along."

"Did you ever think that it might have been that--you were only a boy,
and wounded and weak and overstrained--and full of longing for your
godfather. Did you ever think that you might have mistaken the likeness
of the officer for Kitchener himself? That the thought of Dundonald's
Destroyer was working in your mind before, and that it materialized at
that moment and you--imagined the words he said. Perhaps imagined them
afterwards, as you searched for him over London. The two things might
have suggested each other in your feverish boy's brain."

I stopped, frightened, fearful that he might think me not appreciative
of the honor he had done me in telling this intimate experience. But
General Cochrane was in no wise disturbed.

"Yes, I've thought that," he answered dispassionately. "It may be that
was the case. And yet--I can't see it. That thing happened to me. I've
not been able to explain it away to my own satisfaction. I've not been
able to believe otherwise than that the Sirdar, England's hero, came to
save England in her peril, and that he did it by breathing his thought
into me. His spirit got across somehow from over there--to me. I was the
only available person alive. The copy in the archives was buried, dead
and buried and for