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Updated: May 22, 2025
A moment later still another aircraft came up, and its operator reported. As before, Billie could make out not a single detail of the occupant herself. She, too, wanted the commandant's personal attention; and shortly Billie was looking down upon a scene which she had good reason to remember all the rest of her life.
It was a long journey, in a bumping car with had springs that rattled unceasingly, past the string of provost guards. The Colonel sat in the corner, with his head bent down over his stick At length, cramped and weary, they got out, and made their way along the Arsenal wall, past the sentries to the entrance. The sergeant brought his rifle to a "port". "Commandant's orders, sir.
Now, no doubt this post is essentially a civic office, but inasmuch as the castellan is practically the commandant's lieutenant, it had for a long time always been given to a soldier, especially since the days when one of the civic magistrates had been discovered in collusion with the castellan to betray the town into the enemy's hands.
Only Saaron, as they passed it, showed no sign of life, no glimmering ray from the windows of Eli Tregarthen's house, dark upon the dark hillside. Mr. Pope called the Commandant's attention to this. "Patience," said the Commandant. "We will land and question him on our way home." "You will admit that it looks suspicious." The Commandant did not answer. "If Leggo's story be true," said Dr.
Thus adjured, I answered, perhaps moved thereto more than I thought by Hans's talk, that I, too, considered the thing dangerous, and that someone whose life was less valuable than the commandant's should go in command. "Why do you say so, nephew," he said irritably, "seeing that all white men's lives are of equal value, and I can smell no danger in the business?"
The sober Sandy gave a rollicking Scotch drinking-song that seemed to show the very bead on the liquor, "Hey the browst, and hey the quaigh!". The officers' cook, a quaint old African, seated cross-legged on the ground, on the outskirts of the crowd, piped up at the commandant's bidding, and half sang, half recited, in a wide, deep, musical voice, and an unheard-of language that excited great interest for a time; but interpreting certain manifestations of applause among the soldiers as guying, he took himself and his ear-rings and a gay kerchief, which he wore, to the intense delight of the garrison, as a belt around the waistband of his knee-breeches, to his kitchen, replying with cavalier insubordination, pioneer of the domestic manners of these days, to Captain Stuart's remonstrances by the assertion that he had to wash his kettle.
Perhaps it was the excitement of travel and new surroundings; but her tall, lithe figure, nearly half a head taller than her husband's, was a striking one among the officers' wives in the commandant's sitting-room.
"What a rascal," cried the Commandant's wife. "Just look what he dares to propose to us! To go out to meet him and lay our colours at his feet! Oh! the son of a dog! He doesn't then know that we have been forty years in the service, and that, thank heaven, we have had a taste of all sorts! Is it possible that there can have been commandants base and cowardly enough to obey this robber?"
They alighted at the commandant's, and on stating that he was the bearer of a despatch from the general Hector was at once shown in. As he had more than once ridden there with despatches from Turenne, he was known to the officer. "We heard of the victory three days since," the latter said, as Hector handed him the despatch, "and fired a salvo of guns in honour of it.
"I can try," answered Donald, "and the cause is certainly worthy of the effort." So it was settled, and soon afterward the two young men, whose friendship had become like the love of brothers, stood by the partially opened door of the blockhouse. The night was of inky blackness, and the silence was profound. Only a dull glow still lighted faintly the smouldering ruins of the commandant's quarters.
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