The kindly soldier adjusted the little portmanteau under his head and again sprinkled his head and neck with cold water from the brook. Then saying, ‘Now, lie quietly here till I come back,’ strode off; Jack, in a semi-conscious state, watching the tall, soldierly figure disappear in the distance. CHAPTER III. THE ‘DEATH OR GLORY BOYS.’ In a few minutes Jack was sipping some weak brandy-and-water and munching a sandwich, after which he felt another man. ‘And now, young fellow, where do you propose to steer for?’ asked the soldier. ‘I wanted to get to London,’ replied Jack. ‘But I am afraid that after my late shake up I sha’n’t be able to get as far to-night.’ ‘I don’t think you will,’ replied the soldier, ‘unless,’ he added, ‘you are particularly anxious.’ ‘The fact is, I’m down on my luck. I’m out of a situation, with very little chance of getting another.’ And then Jack told his story, down to the time when the tramps attacked him. The soldier listened attentively. ‘That’s just a very lonely bit of road there,’ he said, ‘especially about this time on a Sunday. It was by the merest chance that I happened to pass and hear your cries. I was just returning from the house of one of my officers, to whom I had taken a letter.’ ‘Are you an officer?’ asked Jack, looking at the gold lace on the soldier’s cuffs and collar. The Lancer laughed. ‘Not I, lad,’ he said; ‘I’m simply Sergeant Bob Barrymore.’ ‘May I ask what regiment yours is?’ The soldier smiled. ‘I thought our uniform and badge were pretty well known,’ he said. ‘My regiment is the 17th Lancers, the “Death or Glory Boys.” But I must be getting on, though I don’t like to leave you here. I’ll see you as far as Hounslow if you like, and I should advise you to put up there for the night and make an early start for London in the morning.’ This seemed to Jack good advice, though he thought with a sinking heart of his small stock of money, which would be thus further reduced. He got on to his feet, and was then astonished to find how weak and giddy he felt. ‘Just what I thought,’ the sergeant said, as he donned his headdress and gauntlets. He placed his left arm round Jack’s waist, half-supporting him; took the portmanteau in his other hand, and, whistling to his horse, which at once followed him, he led the way out of the pleasant meadow on to the highroad. He then gave Jack a ‘leg up’ into the saddle, and instructed him to hold his slender portmanteau in front of him; then, with his right hand on the horse’s bridle, and carrying his sabre in his left, away they went.