y since."

"What was the matter with you?"

"Doctor said it was all on account of weakness, sir, but that I should
be better back in the fresh air--in the ranks."

"And you feel weak now?"

"Yes, sir; horrid. I'm ashamed of myself for being such a coward. But
I know now."

"Well, what do you know?" asked Lennox, more for the sake of calming the
man than from curiosity.

"I thought I was going to get all right again and see the war through,
if I didn't get an unlucky ball; but it's all over now. I've seen 'em,
and it's a fetch."

"A what?" cried Dickenson, laughing.

"Don't laugh, sir, please;" said the man imploringly. "It's too awful.
I see 'em as plain as I see you two gentlemen standing there."

"And who were they?" continued Dickenson; "the brothers Fetch?"

"No, sir; two old comrades of mine who 'listed down Plymouth way when I
did. We used to be in the same football team. They both got it at
Magersfontein, and they've come to tell me it's going to be my turn
now."

"Bah!" growled Dickenson. "Did they say so?"

"No, sir; they didn't speak," said the man, shivering; "but there they
were. I knew Tom Longford by his big short beard, and the other must
have been Mike Lamb."

"Oh, here you are," said the captain of the company. "You can go back
to quarters, and be ready to appear before the colonel in the morning."

"One moment, Captain Edwards," said Lennox gravely. "You'll excuse me
for speaking. This man is only just off the sick list; he is evidently
very ill."

"Oh yes, I know that, Mr Lennox," said the officer coldly; "he has a
very bad complaint for a soldier. Look at him. Has he told you that he
has seen a couple of ghosts?"

"Yes. He is weak from sickness and fasting, and imagined all that; but
I feel perfectly certain that he has seen some one prowling about here."

"Ghosts?" said the captain mockingly.

"No; spies."

"Psh! It's a disease the men have got. Fancy. Every fellow on duty
will be seeing the same thing now. There, that's enough of it."

"Look out!" cried Lennox angrily; and then in the same breath, "What's
that?"

For there was a sharp, grating sound as of stone against stone, and then
silence.

"Stand fast, every man," cried Lennox excitedly, seizing his revolver
and looking along the broad, rugged shelf upon which they stood in the
direction from which the sound had come.

"A lantern here," cried the captain as a sharp movement was heard, and
half-