with the wall, a road pretty constantly swept by musketry fire from
the convent. At the head of the street Corporal Sam stumbled against
a rifleman who, sheltered from bullets at the angle of the crossing,
stood calmly watching the conflagration.

'Hallo!' said the rifleman cheerfully; 'I wanted some more audience,
and you're just in time.'

'There's a child in the house, eh?' panted Corporal Sam, who had come
up the street at a run.

The rifleman nodded. 'Poor little devil! He'll soon be out of his
pain, though.'

'Why, there's heaps of time! The fire won't take hold for another
half-hour. What's the best way in? . . . You an' me can go shares,
if that's what you're hangin' back for,' added Corporal Sam, seeing
that the man eyed him without stirring.

'Hi! Bill!' the rifleman whistled to a comrade, who came slouching
out of a doorway close by, with a clock in one hand, and in the other
a lantern by help of which he had been examining the inside of this
piece of plunder. 'Here's a boiled lobster in a old woman's cloak,
wants to teach us the way into the house yonder.'

'Tell him to go home,' said Bill, still peering into the works of the
clock. 'Tell him we've _been_ there.' He chuckled a moment, looked
up, and addressed himself to Corporal Sam. 'What regiment?'

'The Royals.'