"Pass the hat," cried Bob, whereupon Grace handed her sunshade around among the laughing group, but after inspecting the collection, she said with an air of contempt:--
"A wish-bone and five bread-crusts! Why, a _prima donna_ would starve on such a meagre salary. I've a notion to play Herodias's daughter and dance off your heads;" and when Maud struck up a lively fandango, she shook her curls in a threatening manner, and then whirled off into an amazing waltz.
Jeers and hoots from the boys resounded at her last _pas seul_, and Clifford's voice was heard in the gay tumult saying: "Mademoiselle dis Grace must have learned her step at an Irish wake."
"Let us no longer serve an ungrateful public," said Maud, as they sat down to the table, where their gayety chased away all traces of care or sorrow. When the meal was finished, Maud and Grace begged Colonel Warlow to relate his early history. Their request was eagerly seconded by the other members of the company, who were anxious to learn the particulars of that tragedy, hinted at by the inscription on the mound, and how he came to be connected with the actors in that terrible drama, and to lose a great fortune on that spot so long ago. Then the colonel, after sitting for a few moments wrapped in serious thought, replied that it was a long story, and would require more than one evening to relate all the particulars of that great tragedy, that would always be fresh in his memory as long as life endured.
The company reminded him that it would be rather lonesome on their first Sabbath, and entreated him so eagerly that at length he consented; then, as the firelight leaped and sparkled, and the beams of the rising moon silvered the waters of the stream, moaning and fretting over the stony ford, they all gathered about the colonel, still and expectant. The quavering scream of a lone wolf died out on the hills in a plaintive wail; then only the faint whisper of the wind sighing though the willow was heard, and the colonel said:--
"When a boy of twenty I joined the army that soon invaded Mexico, and carried victory with its banners into the Aztec capital--the world-renowned halls of the Montezumas.
"It was before Vera Cruz--when our ranks were swept by the iron hail, rained upon our storming columns by scores of cannon from San Juan de Ulloa--that I first saw Bruce Walraven, whom I was thenceforth to regard as a brother.