ome forth to put himself at its head, leading the way to the
grave-side where, with uncovered heads, the mourners would listen to
the impressive words with feelings varying as their education,
religion, temperament, and--digestion--impelled.

At the close of the service, the firing-party in their places, six on
either side of the grave, would fire three volleys into the air, while
the band breathed a solemn dirge.

And--perhaps most impressively tragic touch of all--the party would
march briskly off to the strains of the liveliest air in the whole
repertoire of the band.

_Why_ should John Humphreyville Priddell--doubtless scion of the great
Norman houses of Humphreyville and Paradelle, who shared much of
Dorsetshire between them from Domesday Book to Stuart downfall--have
been born in a tiny village of the Vale of Froom in "Dorset Dear," to
die of cholera in vile Motipur? Was some maid, in barton, byre, or
dairy, thinking of him but now--with an ill-writ letter in her bosom,
a letter beginning with "_I now take up my pen to right you these few
lines hopping they find you the same which they now leave me at
present_" according to right tradition and proper custom, and
continuing to speak of homesick longings, dreams of furlough,
promotion, marrying "on the strength," and retirement to green fair
Dorset Dear on a Sergeant-Major's pension?

What was the meaning of it all? Was it pure chance and accident--or
had a Living, Scheming, Purposeful Deity a great wise object in this
that John Humphreyville Priddell should have been born and bred and
nurtured in the Vale of Froom to be struck from lusty life to a death
of agony in a few hours at Motipur in the cruel accursed blighted land
of Ind?

Well, well!--high time to rap again upon the door, the last door, of
John Humphreyville Priddell, Trooper, ex-dairyhand, decaying
carrion,--and scare from his carcass such over-early visitants as
anticipated....

How hollowly the blows re-echoed. Did they strike muffled but
murderous upon the heart of the thousand-league distant dairymaid, or
of the old cottage-mother whose evenings were spent in spelling out
her boy's loving letters--that so oft covered a portion of his
exiguous pay?...

Was that a scuttling within? Quite probably. It might be--rats, it
might be a bandicoot; it could hardly be a jackal; it might be a
SNAKE,--and Trooper Matthewson's carbine clattered to the ground and
his knees smote together as he thought the