"A hanging job this, Cockaleekie," he went on, looking around him; "where’s a rope? Aha!" Then running to the marquee he drew a knife from his pocket, and cutting through one of the tent cords, returned with it in his hand to the now silent quartette.
"Round his neck, so!"—fitting the noose over Caldwell’s head as he spoke, and then tossing the other end over the bracket of an adjacent lamp-post—"Ready now? Sound the dead march then, whack your tummy for the drum, old Mac; what the devil are you laughing at?" seeing abroad smile on the surgeon’s and Newton’s faces. There was no smile on the faces of Caldwell and Glover, however, but an expression of scorn on the one and terror on the other, for well Glover knew Hector Graeme, and also Hector Graeme’s idea of a joke.
"Think I don’t mean it?" he cackled. "Gad, I’ll show you, then." He drew the rope tighter, but the boy never flinched, and his eyes now expressed hatred as well as scorn.
"Sir," said Macpherson, his smile suddenly fading, "Caldwell was only joking, very wrong, I own, but he’s young, sir."
"Caldwell, sir, General Belfield’s A.D.C."
A slash of the knife, and the rope lay in pieces on the ground.
"Be off," he said, "cackle as much as you like, I won’t touch you. It’s the way you and the rest of the brood have been brought up. Go and chatter about your Commander-in-Chief, if you will; I’ve stood it for years, and despise it. Clear!"
Silently Caldwell saluted and went, and for a minute an awkward pause followed. Graeme stood looking after the retreating figure, and, then suddenly throwing himself forward on to his hands, he turned a couple of cartwheels and once more came back to the group.
"What’s the night’s bag," he said, "a good un, ain’t it, and mixed?"
"I don’t know yet for certain, sir," answered Macpherson. "There are four generals killed, and close on seven thousand officers and men either dead or wounded. The missing, of course, I don’t count."
"Hurrah! That’ll make ’em sing _Rule Britannia_ at home; a jolly good lesson to ’em, though they’ll forget it in a year. Think we’re going to win, Mac?"
"You don’t, that drawn mug of yours gives you away, we shall, though. The old green-backs, yonder," waving his hand to the north, "are in for a hell of a hiding. Like my hat?" suddenly addressing the open-mouthed Newton.