I knew that some one should be pacing to and fro, along that beat, but could not tell at what point he might be at that precise moment.

Besides, there was a faint possibility that some chatty corporal might have carried the news of my bath thus far along the line, and they might be partially prepared for this unexpected visitor.
Suddenly, like another flash, came the quick, quaint challenge,-- "Halt! Who's go dar ?" "F-f-friend with the c-c-countersign," retorted I, with chilly, but conciliatory energy, rising at full length out of the shallow water, to show myself a man and a brother.
"Ac-vance, friend, and give de countersign," responded the literal soldier, who at such a tune would have accosted: a spirit of light or goblin damned with no other formula.
I advanced and gave it, he recognized my voice at once.

| And then and there, as I stood, a dripping ghost, beneath the f trees before him, the unconscionable fellow, wishing to exhaust upon me the utmost resources of military hospitality, deliberately presented arms! Now a soldier on picket, or at night, usually presents arms to nobody; but a sentinel on camp-guard by day is expected to perform that ceremony to anything in human shape that has two rows of buttons.

Here was a human shape, but so utterly buttonless that it exhibited not even a rag to which a button could by any earthly possibility be appended, button-less even potentially; and my blameless Ethiopian presented arms to even this.

Where, then, are the theories of Carlyle, the axioms of "Sartor Resartus," the inability of humanity to conceive "a naked Duke of Windlestraw addressing a naked House of Lords"?
Cautioning my adherent, however, as to the proprieties suitable for such occasions thenceforward, I left him watching the river with renewed vigilance, and awaiting the next merman who should report himself.
Finding my way to the building, I hunted up a sergeant and a blanket, got a fire kindled in the dismantled chimney, and sat before it in my single garment, like a moist but undismayed Choctaw, until horse and clothing could be brought round from the causeway.