can't call to mind the cut of his jib.'

'You wouldn't. His name's Ramsay, and he's just out of arrest.'

'What has he done?'

'A many things, first and last. At Fuentes d'Onoro the whole French
cavalry cut him off--him and his battery--and he charged back clean
through them; ay, lad, through 'em like a swathe, with his horses
belly-down and the guns behind 'em bounding like skipjacks; not a gun
taken, and scarce a gunner hurt. That's the sort of man.'

'Why has he been under arrest?'

'Because the Marquis gave him an order and forgot it. And because
coming up later, expecting to find him where he wasn't and had no
right to be, the Marquis lost his temper. And likewise, because,
when a great man loses his temper, right or wrong don't matter much.
So there goes Captain Ramsay broken; a gentleman and a born fighter;
and a captain he'll die. That's how the mills grind in this here
all-conquering army. And the likes of us sit here and complain.'

'If a man did that wrong to me--' Corporal Sam jumped to his feet and
stared after the slight figure moving alone across the sandhills.

Had his curiosity led him but a few paces farther, he had seen a
strange sight indeed.

Captain Norman Ramsay, wandering alone and with a burning heart,
halted suddenly on the edge of a sand-pit. Below him four men stood,