He dropped on one knee and fired into the brown of the men on the veranda, but the bullet flew high, and landed in the brickwork with a vicious phant that made some of the younger ones turn pale. It is, as musketry theorists observe, one thing to fire and another to be fired at.
Then the instinct of the chase flared up. The news spread from barrack to barrack, and the men doubled out intent on the capture of Simmons, the wild beast, who was heading for the Cavalry parade-ground, stopping now and again to send back a shot and a Lurse in the direction of his pursuers.
“I’ll learn you to spy on me!” he shouted; “I’ll learn you to give me dorg’s names! Come on the ‘ole lot O’ you! Colonel John Anthony Deever, C.B.!”--he turned toward the Infantry Mess and shook his rifle--“you think yourself the devil of a man--but I tell ‘jou that if you Put your ugly old carcass outside O’ that door, I’ll make you the poorest-lookin’ man in the army. Come out, Colonel John Anthony Deever, C.B.! Come out and see me practiss on the rainge. I’m the crack shot of the ‘ole bloomin’ battalion.” In proof of which statement Simmons fired at the lighted windows of the mess-house.
“Private Simmons, E Comp’ny, on the Cavalry p’rade-ground, Sir, with thirty rounds,” said a Sergeant breathlessly to the Colonel. “Shootin’ right and lef’, Sir. Shot Private Losson. What’s to be done, Sir?”
Colonel John Anthony Deever, C.B., sallied out, only to be saluted by a spurt of dust at his feet.
“Pull up!” said the Second in Command; “I don’t want my step in that way, Colonel. He’s as dangerous as a mad dog.”
“Shoot him like one, then,” said the Colonel, bitterly, “if he won’t take his chance. My regiment, too! If it had been the Towheads I could have understood.”
Private Simmons had occupied a strong position near a well on the edge of the parade-ground, and was defying the regiment to come on. The regiment was not anxious to comply, for there is small honor in being shot by a fellow-private. Only Corporal Slane, rifle in band, threw himself down on the ground, and wormed his way toward the well.
“Don’t shoot,” said he to the men round him; “like as not you’ll hit me. I’ll catch the beggar, livin’.”
Simmons ceased shouting for a while, and the noise of trap-wheels could be heard across the plain. Major Oldyne Commanding the Horse Battery, was coming back from a dinner in the Civil Lines; was driving after his usual custom--that is to say, as fast as the horse could go.