But what on earth brought you crawling back here ?" "Mr.Archibald!" I gasped, "I saw _him_!" "Him ?" "Whitmore!" He stared at me.

"You're off your head a bit, boy.

You'll be all right when we get you to hospital." "But I saw him, sir! They shot him--against the wall.

He was a deserter, and they hunted him out." "Well, and what is that to me, if they did ?" He turned his face away.

"Isabel, my wife, is dead," he said slowly.
"Dead ?" "She is dead--and the child." He bowed his face, while I gazed at him incredulous, sick at heart.
"If what you say is true," he said, lifting his eyes till, weary and desperate, they met mine, "she has been avenged to-night." "You shall see," I promised; and as the two soldiers picked me up and laid me along a plank, I made signs that they were to carry me as I directed.