The green cliff-top sloped stiffly here, and beneath him John could see the big, circular iron gun platform, and below it the ladder leading into the gun chamber. On a parapet beyond the gun, and on the very edge of the cliff, a sentry paced back and forth, his outline picked out sharply against the blue of the sea that murmured faintly four hundred feet below. At the open breach of the gun itself another soldier was at work, a man who was long and thin, and a little grey at the temples. He was delicately wiping certain shining parts of the weapon with an oiled rag. As the Colonel's feet, followed by John, smote the iron platform, the soldier drew himself erect and stood at attention.
"This is Ewins," said the Colonel to John. John greeted Ewins with a friendly smile. Until that moment he had doubted him. Only a few days earlier he had met one traitor in Mrs. Beecher Monmouth, and as he and the Colonel approached the gun platform he had been wondering if in Ewins he was to meet a second.
Ewins was thin-faced, with a weather-reddened skin and clear, brown eyes. He was a man in the late forties, a typical old soldier. John, looking at him, wondered if it was possible that he could have been corrupted, but somehow he found it difficult to suspect the man.
Colonel Hobin made an excuse and left the two together.
"You are in a grand position here, Ewins," said John.
"Fine, sir," answered the soldier. His accent was British through and through. John gave him permission to carry on, and Ewins closed his breech with a heavy click.
"The Colonel has been speaking very highly of your gunnery."
Ewins looked up quickly, with an expression of pleasure in his eyes.
"Has he, sir?" He paused a moment and hesitated. "It makes a great difference being under him, sir; he sort of brings it out, if you know what I mean; puts you on your mettle."
John made a mental note of his admiration for the Colonel.
"I heard about your trouble last week, Ewins."
"Yes," John answered. "What was the trouble after all?"
"It beats me fairly, sir. There was nothing wrong when they called me--that is, there was nothing wrong after I'd been here a minute or two. You know how she works, sir." As he spoke he almost with a finger raised the great muzzle of his weapon, then made a neat sweep to right and left. "Well, she just lay here like a dead thing."