could have so large a party in the tunnel; so at last they brought
torches, and there was no man alive on our side but the Black Officer,
and he had a wall of corpses built up in front of him, and was fighting
across it. He had more light to see by than the French had, for it was
dark behind him, and there would be some light on their side. So at last
they brought some combustibles and blew it all up. Three days after that
we took the town. Some of our soldiers were sent to dig out the tunnel,
and with them was Shamus Mackenzie."

"And they never found the Black Officer," I said, thinking of young
Campbell in Sekukoeni's fighting koppie.

"Oh, yes," said the boatman, "Shamus found the body of the Black Officer,
all black with smoke, and he laid him down on a green knoll, and was
standing over the dead man, and was thinking of how many places they had
been in together, and of his own country, and how he wished he was there
again. Then the dead man's face moved.

"Shamus turned and ran for his life, and he was running till he met some
officers, and he told them that the Black Officer's body had stirred.
They thought he was lying, but they went off to the place, and one of
them had the thought to take a flask of brandy in his pocket. When they
came to the lifeless body it stirred again, and with one thing and
another they brought him round.

"The Black Officer was not himself again for long, and they took him home
to his own country, and he lay in bed in his house. And every day a red
deer would come to the house, and go into his room and sit on a chair
beside the bed, speaking to him like a man.