"'Damme you might ha left me the prisoners, Bill,' says he. 'Given my chaps a taste o the stuff after all their trouble.' And he says it so ot and uffy like that the Genelman, leanin against the wall, laughs. "The orse-captain heard him, and pokes in. "'Who's that?' he says. "Then when he saw the Genelman agin the wall, he offs his helmet--he knoo what was what did the orse-captain, I will say that. "'Can we do anything for you, sir?' says he, hushed like. "'Nothing for Sailor and me, thank you,' says the Genelman. 'I don't know about Soldier there.' "'I'll send a man back to Lewes for a doctor at once,' says the orse-captain. 'We must be going on. There's a scare all over the country that Fighting Fitz has landed at Pevensey at the head of a Cavalry Division.' "The Genelman laughed a bit. "'A wild-goose chase, believe me,' says he. "'I think so too, sir,' says the orse-captain. 'Still General Beauchamp got an express from Pitt to that effect last night. Some chap swore he'd seen him. And we all know if there's any man in the world'd do it, it's Fighting Fitz.' "'I am Fighting Fitz,' says the Genelman. 'There's no landing except what has took place.'" Knapp dried his eyes. "Yes; he was a--General all right, and he give his life for Private Knapp." III THE WISH AT EVENING CHAPTER LXXXV THE SANCTUARY I "Where is Piper?" asked the Parson. The little rifleman pointed to the tall clothes--horse hung about with cloaks, which made a Sanctuary of the far end of the kitchen. "Is he dead?" whispering. "I fancies so, sir. Lingered it out wunnerful, chattin to the Genelman, ummin an ymn and that. But he's not to say spoke these hours past." The door opened and Kit entered on tip-toe. The Parson beckoned him, and drawing aside the clothes-horse, entered the Sanctuary. Kit followed reverently. Within stood the kitchen dresser. On it, in the religious light, lay the old foretop-man. Somebody had flung a horse-blanket about his lower body that, lying so, the horror of what was not might be concealed. Yet even so Kit found himself shuddering. The terror of that lopped trunk, flat on its back, shocked his heart. Childlike he felt in the dimness for the Parson's fingers, and was made glad by their grip. "I think he's gone," whispered the Parson. II The old man's head, moon-white in the dusk, lay on a soldier's knapsack. An officer's short cloak, buttoned about his throat, was flung back from his body. The great hands, fingers so touching in their thick-jointed awkwardness, were folded on his bare and shaggy breast. His wounds were hidden, but tattooed upon his chest was something that Kit at first mistook for a cross. Then he saw it was an anchor. And as he looked the anchor seemed to glow and grow. No longer a blue smudge on the skin, it was an anchor in the heart, shining through the flesh--the anchor on which this brave old battleship had ridden out the gale of life.