chance!" He smoked again. We hung on his words, for the matter was critical at that time. "Sir Hamiss was killed by the-interests -more than by the natives. You knew? or perhaps that didn't get over in the news-the man who killed him gave himself up later on, half crazed with the thing he had done! Sir Hamiss had befriended him once. You see what I mean ... it was the protest of his country, but not against Sir Hamiss. The beggars marched at his funeral -the biggest fomenters of rebellion in the pack. If only they could see that he was England-not the England of the politicians and the demagogues and the interests-but the England-" He broke off. "Listen to those rooks, will you! The things haven't forgotten their raucous voices. You've no idea how jolly they sound!"

away together, father and son, quite companionably toward the woods.

I was dressed and down-stairs when I saw them return. Mr. Reggie's face was white and set; Sir Loyden's was flushed with anger.

I heard him say: "You will report to me at ten, in the office. We must be in London by three. My instructions are definite!"

Mr. Reggie simply said, "Very well, sir!" with military stiffness, and they parted. Breakfast was a ghastly meal, at which Mr. Reggie put in no appearance, and from which I escaped as quickly as possible. Going out, I found Mr. Reggie in the garden. He was in uniform again, and I thought, with a quick pang, how well it suited him as he moved about in the rose-garden, almost idly sniffing their delicate fragrance, and touching their dewwet petals with an odd gentleness. He started at sound of me, drew himself up, nodded briskly.

"Great morning, Slade!"
"Yes, Mr. Reggie!"

And there we stood, facing each other like two fools, afraid of speech, and still more afraid of silence. He said at last, "There's nothing-just like this, is there?" He gestured with his hand, though I knew he meant the garden, and the shrubbery, and the turf beyond, leading to the house, and the broader sweep of meadow and sloping land to the village, pierced by a glittering stream of quiet water. "England!" he said, and then gravely, "I wish to God I didn't love her so!"

"Mr. Reggie!" I said impulsively. "It's a wretched businessyou having to go again-"

He gestured again queerly.

"You don't understand," he said; then quickly, "You know about this new punitive expedition, Slade?" I nodded. "Thank God for that!" he cried. "I've got to talk to some one and he doesn't understand! My father! Dear God, is he my father?... What am I saying?" He gestured again. "This England, you know-it's not just the leaving again, I could stick that-if I could take the real England with me-this mellow peace, Slade, this native, natural peace!" He lit a cigarette jerkily. "We've given so much— we've so much more to give our best things, the ripe flowers of civilization that the years have brought to perfection-like these fragrant, beautiful!" He touched a rose. "You'll think I'm gone queer," he said, "only I'm seeing the other thing

You understand, they're just waiting the fanatical ones—for such a move. We'll advance into the interior, you understand, still under pretense of police duty, as a sop to the people-well, thank God the nation, and the House, wouldn't stand for the thing if they knew how they're being hoodwinked by the extreme military clique! Anyway, we'll advance, and it'll be a red rag to a bull. They'll come on to 'drive us into the sea,' as they have sworn. The same ghastly, decent beggars who followed in poor Hamiss's funeral cortège. fighting for what they conceive to be their freedom, like the ancestry we play up in our histories—that kind of thing. And then-little puffs of explosionand the gas, Slade!-the gas! My father's gas, Slade! . Slade! . . . If it would blot them out then and there, even, but it won't!"

He almost staggered, himself, then straightened.

"Spare the rod and spoil the child, Slade! Better a few should die that many may learn the lesson! . . . lots of specious excuses. . .. You understand, Slade, the damnable cleverness of it? . . . not too big a dose, they flee before it, gaspingthe white man has put an evil spirit upon them! When they get back to their homes, and comrades, and families, not till then, if the gas is used discreetly, will the thing get them, or most of 'em-a few may get more merciful whiffs-then the evil spirit will tear them, and they'll die in agony before the eyes of their families, and friends... A splendid lesson! My father's gas, Slade, the triumph of his life!”

"Good God!" I exclaimed.

He stared at me in boyish horror. "What have I done?" he cried. "You didn't know-no one is to know, of course, the inside truth, except the military bigwigs-and me! I shouldn't have told . . . the thing that's up there in the woods, such an innocent-looking case of it, that I'm to take!"

"You?" I cried.

"Who else?" he said bitterly. "My father's son! A supreme compliment; I'm to get my majority out of it!"

Sir Loyden's voice, calling imperiously for his secretary, took me from him then. Sir Loyden, I noticed at once, was spick and span in his staff-officer's uniform.

25

It was, I believe, by deliberate intent, that Sir Loyden detained me in the office when the hour of ten struck and Mr. Reggie came in. My own

interpretation is that it was to be strictly a matter of official business, transacted before a secretarial witness, with no earmarks of a fatherand-son dispute.

Sir Loyden looked up almost casually over his glasses and fingered some papers.

"I have the instructions here," he said. "You may read them."

Mr. Reggie took them without a word and read them through. Then he stiffened to attention.

"I am sorry, sir," he said, "but I cannot carry them out. I am resigning my commission!"

"You-what?"

"A soldier has no business to consult his feelings!" He stretched out a podgy forefinger. "By gad, sir, a soldier's business is to deal with death! What is death? Nothing to the soldier, everything to the coward!"

Mr. Reggie seemed about to speak again, but held himself in, his brow wrinkled.

Sir Loyden toyed with a key on his key-ring, then detached it, and set it deliberately on the corner of his desk. He looked up at the clock on the wall, compared it with his watch, and said with surprising calm:

"You will go, sir, and reconsider

commission, sir!"

The veins in Sir Loyden's face turned purple. He leaned forward as if to speak, sat back again, stared blankly, leaned forward at last to say, with a deadly quiet that was more terrible than any explosion: "The Jaruss's have never failed in their duty yet-generations of them

It has been left to me-to me, sir-to produce the first traitor!"

Mr. Reggie started at the word, flushed, clenched his fists, got himself in hand to say, "You will be sorry for that word, sir!"

"Traitor!" repeated Sir Loyden bitterly. "Refusing to obey orders! Swanking about in uniform, and how much fighting have you seen? Barely a smell of powder with the Nurabian expedition. And now, when you're needed for special and important duty, you would resign, would you?"

"You are deliberately misunderstanding me, sir!" cried Mr. Reggie suddenly. "You know my feelings about the gas-"

you decide to obey orders, you will return here in uniform and get the key. Should you decide to play the traitor, you will discard the uniform that no-coward or traitor should wear, and return in mufti. I shall then understand that the army has lost a worthless member, and that I have lost a son! Take some dictation, Slade!"

Mr. Reggie bit his lip, hesitated, turned sharply on his heel, and left.

23

I have marveled, since, at the control of Sir Loyden in that fateful quarter-hour. He removed his Sam Browne, as if there were relief in the act. His face was grim and white instead of the usual dull red, but he dictated calmly, steadily, until my own trembling fingers almost failed me. Once or twice my eyes stole to the clock, and once, when a minute was lacking, I caught him at the same trick, and our eyes met. His almost wavered, then he said, brusquely:

"Another letter, Slade!"

In the middle of it, there was a quick step on the gravel path outside, for one can enter the office directly from the garden. My back was to the door, and I did not dare turn. I saw Sir Loyden look up, his face ashy; then he reddened strangely, and stood up to face the thing. A tall figure in khaki, his soft service-cap jauntily in place, passed me, and clicking to attention before Sir Loyden, saluted.

"I'm not afraid to leave England or to die for her, if necessary!" said Mr. Reggie in a high, tense voice. "May I have the key, sir?"

Sir Loyden just pointed to it. Mr. Reggie picked it up, faced his father for a silent moment, saluted once more, and went out.

For a

moment the stiff military figure of his father broke. He reached out an arm as if to stop the boy and tell in words the high pride that was in his face. But Mr. Reggie had already gone out into the sweet-scented summer air.

"Where was I, Slade? . . . Yes, yes . . . 'I will make inquiries and advise you further' further' . . . damn these letters, Slade!" He took off his glasses, put them on again, leaned forward to snap at me: "I suppose you disapprove of the lad, huh? Thought he'd turn out a pussyfooted sentimentalist of the ultramodern breed, didn't you? Lord knows where the world and civilization and the white race and the Empire would be, if there weren't some of us to balance things! . . . Forgot he was a Jaruss, didn't you? Thought he'd buckle in the test, didn't you? Well, maybe I did too. But he didn't, Slade, he didn't! . . Thought I was harsh with him,

didn't you? My dear Slade," he laughed now, "I didn't really believe that stuff-called him traitor and coward just to put him on his mettle. See that picture up there; that was the boy's great-great-great-grandfather, well, I don't know just how many generations back . . . time of the Roundheads. Got some scruples about his conscience and the king, and it seemed a toss-up if he'd play the traitor or not; but in the end, like all the Jarusses, he stood loyal in the test, Slade. Odd how history repeats itself!"

Seldom have I seen Sir Loyden in such a communicative mood. And looking back now, I think it was compounded of other elements than a natural pride in the boy. His last words came up before me in confirmation. . . no, not quite the last . . . for he said:

"Slade, a soldier has to do repugnant things sometimes!" ... and then: "Listen, Slade! What's got into the rooks?"

"They scolded like that, sir, when you came from the woods yesterday."

"Didn't notice," he said; then, suddenly, we both found ourselves tense, listening. Never was such excitement in the rook colony before! We were in the door now-Sir Loyden beside me-both staring across the sunlit meadows to the woods at the back of the estate. Often since, in sweating nightmares, I have dreamt of the rooks as I saw them then-a black cloud rising above the trees, an angry cloud, hesitating, then sweeping under some sudden leadership toward us, a strange, halting flight, battalions of them, more than one would think the woods could hold.

gripping my arm.

The black battalions were faltering in their flight. Somewhere we could hear the shrieks of women-the domestics, and perhaps Miss Miriam. The birds were almost overhead now; right and left they began dropping, in meadow and shrubbery and garden, and one black lifeless creature at our feet on the garden path. Out of the woods they still came in their eery flight, and now death was among them savagely, and their cawings, save for a few escaping birds, were stifled in a croaking and finally a ghastly silence.

Out of the woods came a figure, barely distinguishable at first in his khaki, a figure not less eery in his way than the flight of birds above him, for at times he walked, and at times he seemed to run jerkily forward, as if, at any cost, the distance must be covered. If we thought at all to run to him, our feet were paralyzed. We stood there, dumbly watching, until he came upon us, a staggering figure now, reeling forward, stiffening straight as a rod at

the

"It's all destroyed, sir!" he said. "All destroyed!" His hands worked convulsively about his head and face. "If-if you make more of it remember, sir . . . just what thing-looks like!" He choked horribly, put a hand to his throat, controlled himself, and gave all his effort in a struggle to tear off his Sam Browne and his tunic. "A traitor, sir!" He reeled. "A traitor-to you-and gas-and war-but not to England! . . . England!"

An agony seized him again. He fell to the ground, writhing, clutching at his throat. We were impotent. It is not of his convulsive anguish as I saw it then, that I shall always think and dream. It is his face! I cannot describe it, as at last he turned and lay stark and still, with the English sunlight full upon him.

I only know that his father, Sir Loyden, with an inarticulate cry,

tore off his tunic with the red tabs of authority upon it, threw it over the face of his dead son, and fled.