word. Pulling himself
together he hastily snatched up his carbine with a flush of shame at
the slovenly unsoldierly "crime" of dropping it. He'd be dropping his
arms on parade next! But it _might be a snake_--for he had certainly
heard the sound of a movement of some sort. The strong man felt faint
and leant against the mortuary wall for a moment.

Oh, that the wretched carbine were a sword! A man could feel a _man_
with a sword in his hand. He could almost face the Snake, even in
Snake form, if he had a sword ... but what is a carbine, even a
loaded Martini-Henry carbine with its good soft man-stopping slug?
There are no traditions to a carbine--nothing of the Spirit of one's
Ancestors in one--a vile mechanic thing of villainous saltpetre. How
should the Snake fear that? Now a sword was different. It stood for
human war and human courage and human deeds from the mistiest past,
and behind it must be a weight of human wrath, feats, and tradition
that must make even the Snake pause. Oh, for his sword--if the Snake
came upon him when he had but this wretched carbine he would probably
desert his post, fling the useless toy from him, and flee till he fell
blind and fainting on the ground.... And what would the Trooper of the
Queen get who deserted his sentry-post, threw away his arms and
fled--and explained in defence that he had seen a snake? Probably a
court-martial would give him a spell of Military Prison.
Yes--_Jail_.... What proportion of truth could there be in the
firmly-held belief of the men that "crimes" are made so numerous and
so inevitable, to the best-meaning and most careful, because there
exist a great Military Prison System and a great Military Prison
personnel--and that "criminals" are essential to the respective proper
inhabitation and _raison d'etre_ thereof--that unless a good supply of
military "criminals" were forthcoming there might have to be
reductions and curtailments--loss of snug billets.... Certainly
soldiers got years of imprisonment for "crimes" for which civilians
would get reprimands or nominal fines, and, moreover, when a man
became a soldier he certainly lost the elementary fundamental rights
guaranteed to Englishmen by Magna Charta--among them the right of
trial by his peers....

Would poor Priddell mind if he did not knock again? If it were the
Snake it could do Priddell no harm now--he being happily
dead--whereas, if disturbed, it might emerge to the utter
undoing--mind, body, and