The officer, with military quickness, summed up the perilous
situation on his front; he had suffered himself to be bombarded by a
pair of patient eyes. And now he must either acknowledge his
incompetence by a shameful retreat, or he must stir up the dump of
his imagination and see what stories it contained. So with no small
apprehension, he drew upon his inventive genius.

A wonderful story resulted--wonderful as a prophetic parable of
things which the Colonel would not live to see. Perhaps it was only
coincidence that it should be so; perhaps the approach of death
endowed the old gentleman with the gift of dim prophecy--did he not
know that he would follow the swallows away?--perhaps all the Rays,
when they stand in that shadow, possess a mystic vision. Certainly
the boy Rupert--but there! I knew I was in danger of spoiling his
story.

If the Colonel's tale this morning was wonderful to the listener,
the author suspected that he was plagiarising. The hero was a knight
of peculiar grace, who sustained the spotless name of Sir R----
R----. He was not very handsome, having hair that was neither gold
nor brown, and a brace of absurdly sea-blue eyes. But he was
distinguished by many estimable qualities; he was English, for
example, and not French, very brave, very sober, and quite fond of
an elderly relation. And one day he was undoubtedly (although the
Colonel's conscience pricked him) plunging on foot through a dense
forest to the aid of a fellow-knight who had been captured and
imprisoned.

"What was the other knight like?" interrupted Rupert.