"Ignorance seems to me a poor justification for insubordination in an Army officer," he said. "And even if one is to accept that excuse for the regimental officers, one can't for a man like the Director of Military Strategics, who is said to have specialised in war with Germany. Yet that is the man who has co-operated, to put it at the mildest, in arming a huge rebel force with guns from the very country he has always affirmed _we're bound to fight_. It's stabbing the Empire in the back, neither more nor less." He was pale, almost dogmatic. Then Joe barged in, surly and brutal. "The whole truth is," he said, "that the officers of the British Army to-day don't know how to spell the word Duty. Havelock did. Gordon did. And all the world respected them accordingly. These men don't. They've put their party before their coontry as A've always said they would when the pinch came." The Colonel was trembling slightly. "If the test comes," he said, "we shall see." "The test _has_ come," retorted the other savagely, "And we _have_ seen." The Colonel walked swiftly away. In front of him half a mile from the flag-staff, he marked a man standing waist-deep in a clump of gorse. There was something so forlorn about the figure that the Colonel approached, only to find that it was Ernie, who on his side, seeing the other, quitted the ambush, and came slowly towards him. To the Colonel the action seemed a cry of distress. All his resentment at the incident on the bus melted away in a great compassion. "She and me used to lay there week-ends when first we married," Ern said dreamily, nodding towards the gorse he had just left. "And she and you will live _there_ for many happy years, I hope," replied the Colonel warmly, pointing towards the garage in the coombe beneath them. Ernie regarded him inquiringly. "What's that, sir?" "Aren't you coming?" "Where to?" "My garage?" Ernie did not understand and the Colonel explained. "Didn't Mrs. Caspar tell you?" "Ne'er a word," the other answered blankly. The Colonel dropped down to Carlisle Road. There Mr. Trupp picked him up and drove him on to the club for tea. Fresh news from Ulster was just being ticked off on the tape. An hour or two before, a rebel unit, the East Belfast regiment of volunteers, some 5,000 strong, armed with Mausers imported from Germany, and dragging machine-guns warm from Krupp's, had marched through the streets of Belfast. The police had cleared the way for the insurgents; and soldiers of the King, officers and men, had looked on with amusement. The Colonel turned away. "Roll up the map of Empire!" he said. "We'd better send a deputation to Lajput Rai and the Indian Home Rulers and beg them to spare us a few baboos to govern us. Its an abdication of Government." He went into the ante-room.