"What's that?" I cried, looking hard past him. "Get out of this, Mike; the company you keep here when I'm out is not safe for a Christian man." He turned very white, was evidently very uncomfortable, crossed himself over and over again, and bolted. Next morning he brought two sticks, when he came to my room, which he crossed on the fire hearth, and when he turned up at night-time he had evidently been to the canteen, for he was pot-valiant and I could see he had a bottle with him. "I suppose you will be afraid to stay in the rooms alone," I said, as I left for dinner. [Illustration: THE DIVIL, BEDAD!] "I will not," said he; but I saw the blue funk rising in him. It was a Friday. "Did you eat meat to-day?" I asked. "I did that," he replied, "and I will." "Well, God help you," I said. "It's great danger you are in this night." It was midnight when the lieutenant, fully got up in a most perfect fancy dress, and looking his part to perfection, appeared in the mess hut. In his hand he carried a few inches of time fuse, and also a huge fork, known in the service as the tormentor. The cook uses it to take the men's meat out of the boilers. We all crept up to my quarters, which consisted of a hut with two rooms in it, in the front one of which was the victim. To light the fuse and pass it under the door was the work of a moment, then to open the latter and step in took no longer. Mike, who had been absorbing courage from the bottle, had fallen asleep, but was waked up by a prod from the tormentor. He woke with a growl of rage, that changed into a yell of consternation, when he saw the terrific figure regarding him through the sulphury smoke of the fuse. "Mike O'Leary," said a deep voice, "I've come for you." Poor Mike, who had fallen back open-mouthed, with the sweat of fear trickling off him, whimpered: "Oh no, good Mr Devil; wait for the master." "No," thundered the voice; "it's you I want, not your good, kind master, who's been a friend to you, and who you sneer at, insult and deride, and who, Protestant as he is, tries to stop your greedy sin of eating meat on fast days. Come on!" And he made a pass at Mike with the tormentor, which Mike dodged by going over backwards, chair and all. "I'll never cheek him again, by this, and by that, I won't!" yelled Mike, as he got another prod in a fleshy part, "and I'll never touch meat again, I won't." But at that he fainted. He soon came round, and was on his knees telling his beads when we entered the room, as if we were going to have a parting smoke before turning in. "What the deuce have you been up to, Mike?" I said. "Who has been here? What is the cause of this awful smell, and what have you been making such a row about?" "O holy Mary! sor," whined Mike; "he's been here." "Who the devil has been here, you drunken blackguard?" I shouted.