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astonished to meet a Piccadilly fish-merchant in the same circumstances. "Good God, are we mobilizing also?" he asked. "I beg your pardon," he added, belatedly recollecting himself. "Captain William Laurence, of Temeraire, at your service, sir."

"Oh; Colonel Richard Thorndyke, liaison officer," the colonel said. "And what do you mean; you know damned well we have been waiting for you lot."

"Sir," Laurence said, ever more bewildered, "I think you have mistaken us for another company; you cannot have been expecting us. We are come from China by way of Istanbul; my latest orders are months old."

"What?" Now it was Thorndyke's turn to stare, and with growing dismay. "Do you mean to tell me you are alone?"

"As you see us," Laurence said. "We have only stopped to ask safe-passage; we are on our way to Scotland, on urgent business for the Corps."

"Well, what more urgent business than the bloody war the Corps has, I should damned well like to know!" Thorndyke said.

"For my part, sir," Laurence said angrily, "I should like to know what occasion justifies such a remark about my service."

"Occasion!" Thorndyke exclaimed. "Bonaparte's armies on the horizon, and you ask me what occasion there is! I have been waiting for twenty dragons who ought have been here two months ago; that is the bloody occasion."

Chapter 11

III

Chapter 11

PRINCE HOHENLOHE LISTENED to Laurence's attempted explanations without very much expression: some sixty years of age, with a jovial face rendered dignified rather than unpleasantly formal by his white-powdered wig, he looked nonetheless determined. "Little enough did Britain offer, to the defeat of the tyrant you so profess to hate," he said finally, when Laurence had done. "No army has come across from your shores to join the battle. Others, Captain, might have complained that the British prefer to spend gold than blood; but Prussia is not unwilling to bear the brunt of war. Yet twenty dragons we were assured, and promised, and guaranteed; and now we stand on the eve of war, and none are here. Does Britain mean to dishonor her agreement?"

"Sir, not a thought of it, I swear to you," Thorndyke said, glaring daggers at Laurence.

"There can be no such intention," Laurence said. "What has delayed them, sir, I cannot guess; but that can only increase my anxiety to be home. We are a little more than a week's flying away; if you will give me safe-passage I can be gone and back before the end of the month, and I trust with the full company which you have been promised."

"We may not have so long, and I am not inclined to accept more hollow assurances," Hohenlohe said. "If the promised company appears, you may have your safe-passage. Until then, you will be our guest; or if you like, you may do what you can to fulfill the promises which were made: that I leave to your conscience."

He nodded to his guard, who opened the tent-door, signifying plainly the interview was at an end; and despite the courtliness of his manners, there was iron underlying his words.

"I hope you are not so damned foolish you will sit about watching and give them still more disgust of us," Thorndyke said, when they had left the tent.

Laurence wheeled on him, very angry. "As I might have hoped that you would have taken our part, rather than encourage the Prussians in treating us more as prisoners than allies, and insulting the Corps; a pretty performance from a British officer, when you know damned well our circumstances."

"What a couple of eggs can matter next to this campaign, you have leave to try and convince me," Thorndyke said. "For God's sake, do you not understand what this could mean? If Bonaparte rolls them up, where the devil do you suppose he will look next but across the Channel? If we do not stop him here, we will be stopping him in London this time next year; or trying to, and half the country in flames. You aviators would rather do anything than risk these beasts you are hooked to, I know that well enough, but surely you can see - "

"That is enough; that is damned well enough," Laurence said. "By God, you go too far." He gave the man his back and stalked away in a simmering rage; he was not by nature a quarrelsome man, and he had rarely so wanted satisfaction; to have his courage questioned, and his commitment to duty, and withal an insult to his service, was very hard to