Then, just as I was no better nor a log, laying there with my head on my arm, a coward and a traitor, and a black disgrace to the uniform I wore, I suddenly waked up with somebody shaking me hard, real rough, like that--and I jumped perfectly terrible to think it might be the captain on his rounds. Oh, the relief when I saw it was nothing else than the old lady, she kneeling beside me all alone, and her specs shining in the starlight. "William, William!" she said, sorrowful and warning, her voice kind of strange, like she didn't want to say out loud that I had been asleep at my post; and, as she drew away her hand, it touched mine, and it was ice-cold. And, just as I was going to tell her to lope back and be keerful of herself, the grass rustled in front of me, and I saw, rising like a wall, rows on rows of Filipino heads! My, but didn't I shoot and didn't I run, and the bugles rang out and the whole line was rushed, me pelting in and the column spitting fire along a length of three miles! We stood them off all right, and my name was mentioned in orders, and I was promoted sergeant, the brigadier shaking my hand and telling the boys I was a pattern to go by and everything a Regular ought to be. But it wasn't THAT I was going to tell. It was about the old lady, though I didn't learn it till the next day. She had died at a quarter of midnight, and had lain all night on the captain's bed with a towel over her poor old face. Now, what do you make of that? THE END