uld be better, Sir, to send the men away,' said he to
the Colonel, for he was a much privileged subaltern. He put his arms
round the rag-bound horror as he spoke, and dropped him into a chair.
It may not have been explained that the littleness of Mildred lay in
his being six feet four and big in proportion. The Corporal, seeing
that an officer was disposed to look after the capture, and that the
Colonel's eye was beginning to blaze, promptly removed himself and his
men. The mess was left alone with the carbine-thief, who laid his head
on the table and wept bitterly, hopelessly, and inconsolably, as
little children weep.

Hira Singh leapt to his feet. 'Colonel Sahib,' said he, 'that man is
no Afghan, for they weep _Ai! Ai!_ Nor is he of Hindustan, for they
weep _Oh! Ho!_ He weeps after the fashion of the white men, who say
_Ow! Ow!_'

'Now where the dickens did you get that knowledge, Hira Singh?' said
the Captain of the Lushkar team.

'Hear him!' said Hira Singh simply, pointing at the crumpled figure
that wept as though it would never cease.

'He said, "My God!"' said little Mildred. 'I heard him say it.'

The Colonel and the mess-room looked at the man in silence. It is a
horrible thing to hear a man cry. A woman can sob from the top of her
palate, or her lips, or anywhere else, but a man must cry from his
diaphragm, and it rends him to pieces.

'Poor devil!' said the Colonel, coughing tremendously. 'We ought to
send him to hospital. He's been man-handled.'

Now the Adjutant loved his carbines. They were to him as his
grandchildren, the men standing in the first place. He grunted
rebelliously: 'I can understand an Afghan stealing, because he's built
that way. But I can't understand his crying. That makes it worse.'

The brandy must have affected Dirkovitch, for he lay back in his chair
and stared at the ceiling. There was nothing special in the ceiling
beyond a shadow as of a huge black coffin. Owing to some peculiarity
in the construction of the mess-room this shadow was always thrown
when the candles were lighted. It never disturbed the digestion of the
White Hussars. They were in fact rather proud of it.

'Is he going to cry all night?' said the Colonel, 'or are we supposed
to sit up with little Mildred's guest until he feels better?'

The man in the chair threw up his head and stared at the mess. 'Oh, my
God!' he said, and every soul in the mess rose to his feet. Then the
Lushkar Captain did a deed for