shirt on. But atween you an' me, sir, though we're all assembled here, sir, and a-talking as natural as ninepence as it were, it won't surprise me much, sir, if I wakes up in the matter of half an hour and finds that I'm asleep, for everything seems that outrageous like that the more I think on it the less I can understand it. For what I asks is this: Is that the rebel that I see afore me or is it 'is counterfeit presentiment? And anyhow, sir, since that business o' the woods I can't be sure of 'im at all, sir, for in my opinion he's a bit of a soopernatural as it were."
"You are quite right, Corporal," I interposed. "He's a supernatural fool."
All this time the chieftest actor in this play, the Captain, had not said a word beyond a little hollow praise of the Corporal's sagacity and promptitude. Seen under the lamp his face presented the most ghastly and piteous appearance. False to his cause, false to himself, the dupe of his own passion, the slave of his own weakness, I began to conceive a great compassion for him, and a horror of my own callousness. As for the rebel, now that his head-*strong folly had robbed him of his last chance of escape, all hope became abandoned. It was as much as ever I could do to prevent my anger and sorrow mastering my spirit and giving way to a flood of passionate tears. All our strivings to end miserably thus! It was only the severest discipline that could allow me to endure it defiantly. And yet though his own wilful act was to drag him to an
