bulk into them," laughed Ellerey. "Some day, perhaps, when I am certain
of your affection, I may tell you more of the adventure, and ask your
help."

The man took up the tankard, looked into its emptiness, and put it
down again. Then he turned round suddenly: "Some time since I was
offered higher pay to serve another master, Captain."

"Why didn't you go?"

"I'm beginning to think I was a fool, since you trust me so little,"
Stefan answered; "but I may yet prove a better comrade in a tight place
than many. Good-night."

A soldier, one of his own troop of Horse, Stefan had drifted into
Ellerey's service, perhaps because he was a lonely man like his master.
He appeared to have no ties whatever, nor wanted any, and declared
that the first man he met in the street who was old enough might be
his father, for anything he knew to the contrary. His mother, he knew,
had died bringing him into the world; a wasted sacrifice, he called
it, since the world could have done very well without him and he without
it. Being in it, he took all the good he could find, and if he held
his own life cheaply, he was even less interested in the lives of
others. Women he hated, and his good opinion could be purchased by a
man for a brimming tankard, and lasted, as a rule, so long as any
liquor remained.

It was hardly wonderful that Ellerey should not trust such a man with
any secret of his. Yet the soldier's parting words, and the look on
his face as he spoke, made him thoughtful.