corporal was turning away. For three days San Sebastian had been a hell, between the flames of which he had seen things that sickened his soul. They sickened it yet, only in remembrance. Yes, and the sickness had more than once come nigh to be physical. His throat worked at the talk of loot, now that he knew what men did for it.
'The general ain't after the furnitcher,' answered the first speaker.
'It consarns a child.'
'A child ain't no such rarity in San Sebastian that anybody need offer five pounds for one.'
'What's this talk about a child?' asked Sergeant Wilkes, coming in from his rounds, and dropping to a seat by the blaze. He caught sight of Corporal Sam standing a little way back, and nodded.
'Well, it seems that, barring this child, every soul in the house has been killed. The place is pretty certain death to approach, and the crittur, for all that's known, has been left without food for two days and more. 'Tis a boy, I'm told—a small thing, not above four at the most. Between whiles it runs to the window and looks out. The sentries have seen it more'n a dozen times; and one told me he'd a sight sooner look on a ghost.'
'Then why don't the Frenchies help?' some one demanded. 'There's a plenty of 'em close by, in the convent.'
'The convent don't count. There's a garden between it and the house, and on the convent side a blank wall—no windows at all, only loopholes. Besides which, there's a whole block of buildings in full blaze t'other side of the house, and the smoke of it drives across so that 'tis only between whiles you can see the child at all. The odds are, he'll be burnt alive or smothered before he starves outright; and, I reckon, put one against the other, 'twill be the mercifuller end.'
'Poor little beggar,' said the sergeant. 'But why don't the general send in a white flag, and take him off?'
'A lot the governor would believe—and after what you and me have
seen these two days! A nice tenderhearted crew to tell him,
"If you please, we've come for a poor little three-year-old."
Why, he'd as lief as not believe we meant to eat him.'
Sergeant Wilkes glanced up across the camp-fire to the spot where
Corporal Sam had been standing. But Corporal Sam had disappeared.
CHAPTER VI.
Although the hour was close upon midnight, and no moon showed, Corporal Sam needed no lantern to light him through San Sebastian; for a great part of the upper town still burned fiercely, and from time to time a shell, soaring aloft from the mortar batteries across the river, burst over the citadel or against the rocks where the French yet clung, and each explosion flung a glare across the heavens.
He had passed into the town unchallenged. The fatigue parties, hunting by twos and threes among the ruins of the river-front for corpses to burn or bury, doubtless supposed him to be about the same business. At any rate, they paid him no attention.
Just within the walls, where the conflagration had burnt itself out, there were patches of black shadow to be crossed carefully. The fighting had been obstinate here, and more than one blazing house had collapsed into the thick of it. The corporal picked his way gingerly, shivering a little at the thought of some things buried, or half-buried, among the loose stones. Indeed, at the head of the first street his foot entangled itself in something soft. It turned out to be nothing more than a man's cloak, or poncho, and he slipped it on, to hide his uniform and avoid explanations should he fall in with one of the patrols; but the feel of it gave him a scare for a moment.
The lad, in fact, was sick of fighting and slaughter—physically ill at the remembrance and thought of them. The rage of the assault had burnt its way through him like a fever and left him weak, giddy, queasy of stomach. He had always hated the sight of suffering, even the suffering of dumb animals: and as a sportsman, home in England, he had learnt to kill his game clean, were it beast or bird. In thought, he had always loathed the trade of a butcher, and had certainly never guessed that soldiering could be—as here in San Sebastian he had seen it—more bestial than the shambles.
For some reason, as he picked his road, his mind wandered away from the reek and stink of San Sebastian and back to England, back to Somerset, to the slopes of Mendip. His home there had overlooked an ancient battle-field, and as a boy, tending the sheep on the uplands, he had conned it often and curiously, having heard the old men tell tales of it. The battle had been fought on a wide plain intersected by many water-dykes. Twice or thrice he had taken a holiday to explore it, half expecting that a close view would tell him something of its history; but, having no books to help him, he had brought back very little beyond a sense of awe that so tremendous a thing had happened just there, and (unconsciously) a stored remembrance of the scents blown across the level from the flowers that lined the dykes—scents of mint and meadow-sweet at home there, as the hawthorn was at home on the hills above.
He smelt them now, across the reek of San Sebastian, and they wafted him back to England—to boyhood, dreaming of war but innocent of its crimes—to long thoughts, long summer days spent among the unheeding sheep, his dog Rover beside him—an almost thoroughbred collie, and a good dog, too, though his end had been tragic. … But why on earth should his thoughts be running on Rover just now?
Yet, and although, as he went, England was nearer to him and more real than the smoking heaps between which he picked his way, he steered all the while towards the upper town, through the square, and up the hill overlooked by the convent and the rocky base of the citadel. He knew the exact position of the house, and he chose a narrow street—uninhabited now, and devastated by fire—that led directly to it.
The house was untouched by fire as yet, though another to the left of it blazed furiously. It clung, as it were a swallow's nest, to the face of the cliff. A garden wall ran under the front; and, parallel with the wall, a road pretty constantly swept by musketry fire from the convent. At the head of the street Corporal Sam stumbled against a rifleman who, sheltered from bullets at the angle of the crossing, stood calmly watching the conflagration.
'Hallo!' said the rifleman cheerfully; 'I wanted some more audience, and you're just in time.'
'There's a child in the house, eh?' panted Corporal Sam, who had come up the street at a run.
The rifleman nodded. 'Poor little devil! He'll soon be out of his pain, though.'
'Why, there's heaps of time! The fire won't take hold for another half-hour. What's the best way in? … You an' me can go shares, if that's what you're hangin' back for,' added Corporal Sam, seeing that the man eyed him without stirring.
'Hi! Bill!' the rifleman whistled to a comrade, who came slouching out of a doorway close by, with a clock in one hand, and in the other a lantern by help of which he had been examining the inside of this piece of plunder. 'Here's a boiled lobster in a old woman's cloak, wants to teach us the way into the house yonder.'
'Tell him to go home,' said Bill, still peering into the works of the clock. 'Tell him we've been there.' He chuckled a moment, looked up, and addressed himself to Corporal Sam. 'What regiment?'
'The Royals.'
The two burst out laughing scornfully. 'Don't wonder you cover it
