"You're a good fellow, Davis," he said; "but I would not avail myself of your generosity if I could. I can't take much credit for refusing it. My thigh is broken; and I am hurt besides. I couldn't keep the saddle for ten seconds. Draw my right gauntlet off, and take my ring; you deserve it better than the Cossacks. Keep it as long as you like; it will always bring you a fifty, if you get hard up. And take _this_ too." He put his hand into the breast of his uniform; but drew it back quickly. "No: it shall stay with me while I live." His tone and manner were just the same as if he had met with a heavy fall, out hunting, and were answering some good-natured friend who had stopped to pick him up. The trooper took the ring; but he lingered still. Royston saw a knot of the enemy sweeping down on them, like ravens on a stag wounded to the death; his voice resumed its wonted accent of irresistible command. "Did you hear what I said? I told you to go. Those devils will be down on us in less than a minute. I have not fired one barrel of my revolver, and I'm good for one or two of them yet." The habit of obedience, more than the instinct of self-preservation, made Davis mount and ride away without another word. He looked back, though, as he did so. He heard three distinct reports from Keene's revolver: two of the enemy's skirmishers dropped to the shots, and the third wavered in his saddle; the rest closed round the fallen man with leveled lances. The stout sergeant looked back no more; but he set his teeth hard, and turned out of his way to encounter a stray Russian, and laid the foeman's face open from eyebrow to lip, with an awful blasphemy. The spot where Royston fell was so near to the British lines that those who slaughtered him dared not stay for plunder. Half an hour later, Davis and two more volunteers went out and brought in the mangled body of the best swordsman in the Light Brigade. CHAPTER XXIII. Not dead yet!