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But now newspaper reporters attended the conferences and trailed Waterman about wherever he went, and the public was invited to the wonderful spectacle of this battle-worn veteran, rousing himself for one last desperate campaign and saving the honour and credit of the country. The public hung upon his lightest word, praying for his success.
He made his effort at Tahta, where the town and its prolonged ridge to Khurbet Hellabi were held by the Yeomanry, who proved unequal to the strain. Fortunately the 4th Australian Light Horse got up after a day's hard riding and stopped the gap. They were in no condition for a prolonged defence, and on the night of the 29th the battle-worn 52nd Division was again taking over the work of danger.
The maiden answered, "My father is absent, in council with the Mohawks, but his wigwams are always open. Follow." Nessacus gave a signal, and forth from the wood came a sad-eyed, battle-worn troop that mustered about him. Under the girl's lead they went down to the valley and were hospitably housed.
Quietly and without tap of drum the small, battle-worn battalions filed out of their bivouacs into the highway, ordered arms and waited for the word to march. With a dull rumble the field-pieces trundled slowly after, and halted in rear of the infantry.
Down went man after man of the battle-worn defenders. Liot and Estein met sword to sword and face to face. The red shield was ripped from top to bottom by a sweep of the bairn-slayer's blade, and at the same moment Estein's descending sword was met by a Viking's battle-axe, and snapped at the hilt.
The quick tears dimmed his eyes even now as he recalled anew that final parting following Appomattox, the battle-worn faces of his men, and his own painful journey homeward, defeated, wounded, and penniless. It was no home when he got there, only a heap of ashes and a few weed-grown acres. No familiar face greeted him; not even a slave was left.
In vain he begged the wrathful Mompesson to restore it to him; in vain, with the tears streaming down his battle-worn, weather-beaten face, he protested that the drum was the only friend left to him in all the world; and in vain he related the happy memories it held for him. "Go," he was roughly told "go, and be thankful thou escapest so lightly!"
The maiden answered, "My father is absent, in council with the Mohawks, but his wigwams are always open. Follow." Nessacus gave a signal, and forth from the wood came a sad-eyed, battle-worn troop that mustered about him. Under the girl's lead they went down to the valley and were hospitably housed.
The chapel was flooded by the dull scarlet light that filtered through the lowered blinds; and through the fissure between the last blind and the sash a shaft of wan light entered like a spear and touched the embossed brasses of the candlesticks upon the altar that gleamed like the battle-worn mail armour of angels. Rain was falling on the chapel, on the garden, on the college.
"Charles, sir," chimed the chorus. "Where is he?" The music died in a last tinkling "Kuk-kuk." And then, as the minstrel swung round to face his audience, the whole company heard the beating on the great door. "That," said Dick with a wave of his baton towards it, "is Charles." While George stared heavily at the intruder's battle-worn visage, the second footman flung open the door.
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