"I hate and detest him," says Tom, moodily wavering. "Still, he is a
brave man." Then he calls out, "Sergeant Drooce, Sergeant Drooce! Tell
me you have driven me too hard, and are sorry for it."

The Sergeant, without turning his eyes from his assailants, which would
have been instant death to him, answers.

"No. I won't."

"Sergeant Drooce!" cries Tom, in a kind of an agony. "I have passed my
word that I would never save you from Death, if I could, but would leave
you to die. Tell me you have driven me too hard and are sorry for it,
and that shall go for nothing."

One of the group laid the Sergeant's bald bare head open. The Sergeant
laid him dead.

"I tell you," says the Sergeant, breathing a little short, and waiting
for the next attack, "no. I won't. If you are not man enough to strike
for a fellow-soldier because he wants help, and because of nothing else,
I'll go into the other world and look for a better man."

Tom swept upon them, and cut him out. Tom and he fought their way
through another knot of them, and sent them flying, and came over to
where I was beginning again to feel, with inexpressible joy, that I had
got a sword in my hand.

They had hardly come to us, when I heard, above all the other noises, a
tremendous cry of women's voices. I also saw Miss Maryon, with quite a