"I shall—aw—aw—answer that question, Colonel Beverley, when the time comes, and he returns," replied Berkeley; "but I don’t think those Russian riflemen were in the mood to show much mercy or quarter to-day." "And Norcliff was not such a muff as to surrender quietly," said M’Goldrick. "You will answer the colonel’s question when Norcliff returns say you?" exclaimed Studhome, starting forward, pale with passion; "answer it you shall, and now, to me!" "Studhome!" said the colonel, interposing angrily, "this is some mistake—some wretched misconception. We all know that Captain Norcliff was incapable of committing the act you, Mr. Berkeley, impute to him." "I have seen him lead his troop under fire ere now," growled Studhome; "and lead it when Mr. Berkeley might have thought it unpleasant work to follow him." "Aw—haw—well, disprove it if you can," said Berkeley, with one of his old insufferable smiles, as he stuck his glass in his eye, and lounged out of the cottage, near which my poor fellow, Willie Pitblado, was lingering to pick up some certain information about me from the colonel’s servants. "Eh, me! this will be sair news for the folk at Calderwood Glen," he sighed, as he and Lanty O’Regan turned away together. As Berkeley and I had been in the rear, none save myself could be cognisant of his foul act of treachery. He never doubted that I had been bayoneted by the Russians, and, confident that I should never return, he thus crowned his villany by attempting to destroy my honour. Ere long we shall see what this availed him. *CHAPTER XLIV.* Yes, thou art gone, sweet friend, my own, We miss thee every day, And I, yet more than all, alone, Can only weep and pray. Pray to be rendered meet for heaven, And agonize in prayer, That if we meet no more below, Our meeting may be there. The first halting-place of my escort was in a wood of wild pear trees, among some of those ancient burial mounds or green tumuli which stud all the Crimea, but more particularly the peninsula of Kertch, where one still marks the tomb of Mithridates. In that solitude we heard only the voices of the birds, the lark, the tomtit, and the wren, as they twittered among the caper bushes. The Cossacks hobbled their horses, and proceeded to seat themselves on the green sward that covered the bones of the classic warriors of other times. In their havresacks they had some black bread and salt, with a flask of quass. These they shared freely with me; and with such coarse fare I was forced to be content. The corporal had a Russian poodle, red-eyed, fox-headed, and white as snow, which he pretentiously named Olga, after the Grand Duchess, and with this cur, to which he was much attached, he freely shared his repast, and that piece of felt which serves the Cossack alike for cloak, tent, and bed.