“Please, sir, if you’ve no objections, sir, I’m noways inclined to sit down jest at present, sir, ’cause it would be rayther ill-colvelielt, sir; rayther be excused, sir. Hope no offence, sir.” He continued on the prowl. “What are you looking for, Jones? Lost any part of your kit?” “Please, sir, I’m a-looking for that ’ere Nosey, sir.” “What! the man that stood treat this morning? You don’t expect to find him here.” “Please, sir, I see him here, sir; and I marked him too, sir. See him drop somewhere hereabouts, sir.” This intelligence was “important, if true;” and I also began to look. There was nothing, however, on this part of the field of combat, to indicate that a wounded man had fallen. Jones, though, was positive. “Sure you were not mistaken, Jones?” “No, sir; it wasn’t no mistake, I’m sartain, sir. I’m sartain as I see him, and I’m sartain as I marked him, sir. Knowed him by his——Oh, there he is, sir.” Jones pointed to something in the pond that looked like a package or bundle, half immersed in the water, at the edge of the reeds, a little out from the side. A soldier stepped in, and examined more closely. “It’s a dead man, sir.” “Dead! Get him out, that’s a good fellow. Perhaps he’s only wounded, and not past recovery.” “He’s past that, sir,” said the soldier, as he turned him, face upwards, on the bank. The face had a mask of mud. The soldier knelt down, felt in the dead man’s pockets, brought out a white handkerchief of French cambric—wiped away the mud. Yes, it was Hookey! The features retained their general expression—harsh by temperament, but composed to blandness. Oh, what a look was that! Hookey shot through the neck! The brow was slightly knit; the lips were parted; the teeth clenched. His perpetual smile had set his face, at last, in a fixed, unmeaning smirk—the dead man’s simper! The two corners of his semicircular mouth, drawn up high on the cheeks, were flanked by two furrows, rigid and profound! It was the sort of look which, seen but for a moment, stamps on the memory an impression that we can recall at will, and that sometimes comes unbidden! “Just hold up that handkerchief, my man. Spread it out, will you? Oh, there’s the mark—_Christophe_.” “Any papers?” said I to Jones, who was rummaging in the dead man’s pockets. “Only this here, sir,” said Jones, holding up an envelope, which had been emptied of its contents. It was the cover of my letter, which Hookey had undertaken to deliver at headquarters. The letter itself he had probably sent in a different direction.