To Damocles de Warrenne—to whom the name “Trooper Matthewson” now seemed the only one he had ever had—the craved necessity of life and sanity was _work_, occupation, mental and physical labour. He would have blessed the man who sentenced him to commence the digging of a trench ten miles long and a yard deep for morning and evening labour, and to take over all the accounts of each squadron, for employment in the heat of the day. There was no man in the regiment so indefatigable, so energetic, so persevering, so insatiable of “fatigues,” so willing and anxious to do other people’s duty as well as his own, so restless, so untiring as Trooper Matthewson of E Troop. For Damocles de Warrenne was in the Land of the Serpent and lived in fear. He lived in fear and feared to live; he thought of Fear and feared to think. He turned to work as, but for the memory of Lucille, he would have turned to drink: he laboured to earn deep dreamless sleep and he dreaded sleep. Awake, he could drug himself with work; asleep, he was the prey—the bound, gagged helpless, abject prey—of the Snake. The greediest glutton for work in the best working regiment in the world was Trooper Matthewson—but for him was no promotion. He was, alas, “unreliable”—apt to be “drunk and disorderly,” drunk to the point of “seeing snakes” and becoming a weeping, screaming lunatic—a disgusting spectacle. And, when brought up for sentence, would solemnly assure the Colonel that he was _a total abstainer_, and stick to it when “told-off” for adding impudent lying to shameful indulgence and sickening behaviour. No promotion for that type of waster while Colonel the Earl of A—— commanded the Queen’s Greys, nor while Captain Daunt commanded the squadron the trooper occasionally disgraced. But he had his points, mark you, and it was a thousand pities that so fine a soldier was undeniably subject to attacks of _delirium tremens_ and unmistakeably a secret drinker who might at any time have a violent outburst, finishing in screams, sobs, and tears. A _most_ remarkable case! Who ever heard of a magnificent athlete—regimental champion boxer and swordsman, admittedly as fine and bold a horseman and horse-master as the Rough-Riding Sergeant-Major or the Riding-Master himself—being a sufficiently industrious secret-drinker to get “goes” of “d.t.,” to drink till he behaved like some God-and-man-forsaken wretch that lives on cheap gin in a chronic state of alcoholism. He had his points, and if the Brigadier had ever happened to say to the Colonel: “Send me your smartest, most intelligent, and keenest man to gallop for me at the manoeuvres,” or the Inspector of Army Gymnasia had asked for the regiment’s finest specimen, or if one representative private soldier had to be sent somewhere to uphold the credit and honour of the Queen’s Greys, undoubtedly Trooper Matthewson would have been chosen.