The stranger turned to him, smiling feebly. “You speak as though I had christened myself. Believe me, it is a miracle that I remember the name at all.” His phrases became wandering again, and he passed a hand across his forehead. “Fifteen men,” he laughed aloud. “Fifteen to guard the possessions of their gracious queen. Fifteen soldiers … very brave, I assure you … fifteen in the middle of hell … but so brave, mark you, that a horde of rampant devils, with firebrands and a myriad whistling arrows, hesitated, really hesitated, in very fear before them. A thousand red demons … and, oh, what a song the weapons sang! It laughs in my ears even now.” He smiled with a look that only intensified the horror of his words by its genuine gayety. “Fourteen men damned, dead and damned … worse yet, one man alive to be played with … oh, ’twas a merry game in hell! A game of pall-mall, a new kind of badminton … painted devils, you know, and then the toy, the ball, the shuttlecock, the hobby-horse, call it what you will—that crawling thing in the centre, scorched and sore … behold, my masters, the toy!” He drew himself up to his full height and looked from one to another, laughing. With the exception of Vytal, the listeners could not but avert their glance—Hugh Rouse touching his brow significantly; Prat, with a grave nod, concurring in the verdict. Gyll Croyden turned away with tears in her eyes, and retraced her steps on the homeward trail. It was not until she had forgetfully left them in darkness, her light but a dim spark among the trees, that the others followed her. Vytal walked on alone in deep thought, the unfortunate bringing up the rear with lagging step between Prat and Rouse, who maintained a gloomy silence. Occasionally the youth would laugh, and, seeming to recall some incident of a terrible combat and captivity, would travesty the same with the inconsistency of dementia. It was late in the evening when the little party arrived at its destination. A sentry, guarding the main entrance of the palisade, which by now had been completed, peered through a chink in the upright logs. Vytal, from without, uttered the watch-word, for the sentry’s ears alone. Instantly they were admitted, the guardian of the town’s security glancing curiously at the unknown figure of Ralph Contempt. “In the morning,” whispered Prat, “you shall hear all.” And turning to Vytal, he asked: “Whither, captain, shall we conduct the man? To a pallet in the fortress near our own?” “Nay, he will perhaps fare better with me;” then, to the subject of their discussion, “I trust, Master Contempt, you will accept the hospitality of myself and one other for a day or two at least.” The youth bowed courteously. “I thank you,” he said, and, with that laugh which seemed to deride Fate itself, or, perhaps more subtly, the listeners, he added, “’Tis desirable to be a guest now and then, instead of a plaything.”