Then suddenly he grasped the real meaning of the affair. His instinct, which had made him dislike von Nissew from the very beginning, was not wrong then. What he had just seen made him determine to sift the matter to the bottom, so he now went back to the soldier and subjected him to a cross-examination. When did he fall? Who were there when it happened? Had he been to the ward-room and had his wounds dressed by the nurse? Who was in the room when he returned? But he could get nothing out of the man; he had fallen down, nobody had seen it, and he had told none, because he had not wanted to make himself ridiculous on account of his clumsiness. "What do you know about the matter, Non-Commissioned Officer von Nissew?" said George, turning suddenly to him. "You are responsible for these men. Why did you not send this man to the ward-room? The wound looks frightful." The non-commissioned officer continued staring at the soldier with threatening eyes. "I know nothing about it, sir. I only discovered the injury just before the inspection, and then it was too late to send him to the nurse." George knew perfectly well that von Nissew was not speaking the truth, but he did not want to convict him of lying before the assembled men, on the ground of discipline and subordination. "Show me the place on the steps where you fell down." A clever liar would have shown George some place or other and said, "Here, sir." But the soldier was so little accustomed to hypocrisy and concealment that he did not know whether to go to the right or to the left, and George once more took him to task. "I want to say something to you, Petersen; you know me, and you know that I try to act fairly towards you all, and shut my eyes whenever I can, but if you stand here and lie to me and make a fool of me, I shall get very angry indeed, and I can assure you you won't appreciate _that_ side of me. Well, now out with it. I pledge you my word you shan't suffer for it. Where did you fall down?" A struggle was going on in Petersen's mind. At last he said: "I did not fall down at all." "But--what happened then?" "Non-Commissioned Officer von Nissew struck me on the head with a frying-pan." George was enraged beyond measure, although from the first he had not for a moment doubted that something of the kind had happened; still, he did not want to betray his feelings towards his subordinate, so he only said: "So that's it. Well, that will do. Now go back into line." But the private stood still in a stiff attitude before his lieutenant and did not move. "Do you want to say anything else?" asked George. "You know, Petersen, you cannot lodge a complaint against von Nissew to-day. You must not do that till to-morrow, or you yourself will be liable to punishment." "Sir, if you will allow me, I do not want to make any complaint." "What do you want, then?" The soldier, a tall, strong, fine-looking man, trembled in every limb. "Now, out with it. You can trust me. What is it?"