The kitchen was dim as a sick-room, and strangely hushed. No one spoke but the Parson and he in whispers, lecturing Knapp, undressing in the corner.

The gravity of the enterprise, its certain perils, the issues at stake, oppressed the room. Death was there already; as yet indeed only a ghost at each man's elbow, in a few moments maybe to become incarnate.

Kit felt it and sickened.

Perched upon the table, his back to the boarded window, he whetted his dirk upon his shoe, and wondered if those others, those men, Knapp most of all, felt as he did.

Privately he thanked heaven that the dusk hid his face.

Through chinks and splintered bullet-holes, the light stole in, making daggers across the darkness.

It splashed the walls, the great stone-flags, the black mouth of the cellar, and the dresser in the corner.

There sat Knapp, a grey ghost spotted here and there with light. The little rifleman was naked now, save for a pair of fighting drawers. A heap of clothes sprawled at his feet.

The little rifleman was like a child. Broken-hearted a minute back, now he was as a lion in leash.

There was an adventure forward, and the off chance of a fight: he brimmed at the thought of it. Without imagination, he knew no fear; with little experience of pain, he didn't much believe in it. They wouldn't catch him; they wouldn't hit him!

Before him knelt the Parson with low head, swathing his feet with strips of torn towel, absorbed as a surgeon, careful as a mother.

"Is that easy?—now how's that?—try your foot down! Another turn round the ankle?—Remember, it'll be rough going till you strike the grass."

At the loop-hole Nelson's old foretop-man watched and waited. A gleam smote his silver hair and prophetic forehead. Kit watched him wondering.

The old man, so tranquil amid the stir and whisper of death, affected the boy as One years ago had affected other seamen tempest-tossed.

His chattering heart hushed as a sparrow hushes in the quiet of a great cathedral.

Then the world rushed in on him with a shout.

Again that gust of laughter outside, that roaring chorus.

The Gap Gang were making merry.

The contrast revolted the lad.

The table on which he sat began to rattle.

Quietly he slipped off it. But the old foretop-man had heard.

Leaving his post, he came rumbling across the uneven flags.

"The waitin time's generally always the worst time, sir," he whispered. "Sooner farty actions than wait for one—I've hard Lard Nelson say it himsalf."

"I am a bit—quaky," replied the boy, and would have admitted as much to no other man, and to few women.

"And none the worse for that, sir. It's a poor heart that can't feel fear. If a man's not a bit timersome about facin his Maker, then he ought to be. Pluck's doin your duty although you are afear'd. You'll be right enough once you're in it, surely…. And if you're not above a hint from a man before the mast, sir, you'll take them shoes off. Boardin-parties bare-fut—that was ollus the word aboard the Agamemnon…. Ah, Knapp, feelin slap?"

"Ay, fit to run for me life or fight for it," bubbled the little rifleman, prancing out of his corner.

The Parson beckoned Kit.

"You see his sort," he whispered. "The chap's as full of meat and mischief as a lion-cub." He turned again. "Knapp," he said solemnly, "this is your officer. He's coming with you to see you off. He carries the King's commission as truly as I do. You'll obey him as you would me, and no nonsense, d'you see?"

"Very good, sir," said the little man, jigging and bobbing. "I'm all of a pop like. Seems I might go off any moment."

"Any tomfoolery and you will go off," replied the Parson sternly—"out of this world into the next—pop! as you say yourself. You've only one chance against the finest marksmen in the world, and that's to show em a clean pair of heels. If you don't, you've fought your last fight, my lad! Ginger Jake's cock of the South."

The last words went home. The little rifleman became very grave. He swung round to Piper in his swift bird-like way.

"Mr. Piper, pop off a prayer for us."

The common-sense saint lifted his head.

"God elp and strengthen your legs, Nipper Knapp," he prayed.

"That's the point, O Lord!—his legs!" punctuated the Parson.

"Sometimes," continued the old foretop-man solemnly, "I have wondered why the Lard saw good to take my legs to Himsalf. Rack'n I knaw now." He reached out a huge hand, gripped the little rifleman and pulled him closer. "There's nawthin cut to waste in this world," he whispered huskily. "And it's my belieft He's been savin of em up this ten year past agin this day—to put the strength of em into your'n, Jack Knapp. May you make good use o both pairs—your own o the flesh, and mine o the sperrit!—that's my best prayer for you."

The little rifleman, as simple as the old sailor, was profoundly touched.

"I'll do me best, Mr. Piper, struth I will!" he sniffed. "Never do to mess it a'ter all His trouble."

"Give us your hand on it!" said the old man. "And you too, sir, if so be a common sailor might make so bold."

The old sailor and the young shook hands feelingly: the two soldiers followed suit.

"Don't forget you're a Black Borderer, my boy," said the Parson, one hand on the rifleman's shoulder.

"That I'll never, sir!" replied the little man, almost in tears.

Parson and Kit gripped hands: neither spoke.

Then the Parson ran up the ladder.