The consumptive lieutenant was not in the yard. He had had a hemorrhage and was now in the hospital watching Death come a stride a day. The yard held a fair number of men, listless in the heat, walking slowly, standing, or seated, with hands about the knees and bowed heads, on the parched, untidy ground. The guards at the small gate, a gate which opened on another yard, not free to prisoners, with beyond it the true, heavy gate—the guards suffered with the heat, held their rifles languidly. The moments went on, a line of winged creatures now with broken wings, creeping, not flying, an ant-line of slow moments, each with its burden of lassitude, ennui, enfeebled hope. The one tree-top was all green and gold and shining fair and heavenly cool, but it was set in Paradise, and from Paradise, like Abraham, it only looked across the gulf, a gulf in which it acquiesced. And so it was a mocking tree, more fiend than angel.... The figures of the sentries at the gate grew energized; they tautened, stood at salute. Into the yard came on inspection a group of officers, among them the one whom the prisoners held to be human. With them came Father Tierney. “The top of the morning to ye, children!” said Father Tierney. “Sure it’s a red cock feather the morning’s wearing!” He came nearer. “Where’s the lieutenant that was coughing himself away, poor deluded lad!” He looked about him, then came over to the wall, a big, rusty-black figure, standing so close that he made another wall for shadow. His eyes and Stafford’s met. “The lieutenant, poor lad!” demanded Father Tierney, his strong, rich voice rolling through the yard, “it’s the hospital he’s in?” “Yes,” said Stafford. “He had a bad hemorrhage and they took him yesterday.” “Tell me,” said Father Tierney, “a bit about him, and I’ll write it to his parents. Parents—especially mothers—have the same kind of heartbreak on both sides of the line.” The officers passed on. The thirty-odd grey prisoners walked or sat or stood as before. Stafford was a little in shadow, and the priest’s bulky form, squared before him, cut off the more crowded part of the enclosure. Father Tierney, discoursing of parents, dropped his voice with suddenness. “It’s the smallest possible bundle. You’re sure you can hide it under your coat?” “Yes—” “And his father’s a ribil fighting with Johnston—and his mother in Kentucky—Holy Powers!” said Father Tierney, “the heat in this place’s fearful and I once had sunsthroke—_Quick!_—It’s giddy enough—_Have you got it?_—I’m feeling this minute!” He straightened himself, wandered to a neighbouring stone, and, sitting down, called to the nearest guard who came up. “Is there a cup of water handy, my son? I had a sunsthroke once and this yard’s Gehenna to-day, no less!”