sees an officer coming round he must get rid of it. Mind the sentries are
changed regularly, for I expect that we shall sleep so soundly that if all
the bugles in the place were sounding an alarm we should not hear them."

"All right, Colonel! I have got Sergeant Jackson in charge of the reliefs
in the passage outside, and I think that I can depend upon him, but I will
tell him to wake me up whenever he changes the sentries. I don't say I
shall turn out myself, but as long as he calls me I shall know that he is
awake, and that it is all right. I had better tell him to call you half an
hour before bugle-call, Sullivan, so that you can wake the others and get
the wine here; he mustn't be a minute after the half-hour. Thank goodness,
we don't have to furnish the outposts to-night."

In ten minutes all were asleep on the floor, wrapped in their greatcoats,
the officer of the day taking his place next the door so that he could be
roused easily. Every hour one or other of the two non-commissioned
officers in charge of the guard in the passage opened the door a few
inches and said softly, "I am relieving the sentries, sir;" and each time
the officer murmured assent.

Sullivan was called at the appointed time, got up, and stretched himself,
grumbling:

"I don't believe that I have been asleep ten minutes."

On going out into the passage, however, where a light was burning, his
watch told him that it was indeed time to be moving. He woke the others,
and with the men went down to the cellars. Here the scene of confusion was
great; drunken men lay thickly about the floor, others sat, cup in hand,
talking, or singing snatches of song, Spanish or English. Hastily picking