The imaginary corps referred to contained one of the most offensive imputations to the ears of Peninsula men; thus Captain Askerne exclaimed-- "Cowardice, Colonel Crawford--would you infer cowardice?" "I infer nothing, gentlemen, but that better men than he have shown the white feather." "Not in _the Line_, that I am aware of," was the somewhat pointed remark of Middleton; and Cosmo, who had lately come from the Guards, crimsoned with suppressed passion. "A volunteer is a soldier of fortune, and none such can ever be a coward," said Askerne, stoutly. "Of course not--the idea is absurd," added Middleton, looking round the group of officers, who glanced their approval. "You are warm, Major Middleton," said Cosmo, sternly, while his eyes gleamed with their most dangerous expression; "somewhat unnecessarily warm on this trivial subject, I think." "I am at least honest, colonel, as he must be who defends the absent or the dead." "We have had enough of this--to your companies--fall in, gentlemen!" said the colonel, sternly and impatiently, as he spurred his horse, unsheathed his sword, and the formula of the parade began, after which he revenged himself by drilling the corps, under a drizzling rain, for nearly two hours, forcing Askerne's grenadiers to skirmish in a swamp, and making old Major Middleton put the battalion twice through the eighteen manoeuvres. About this time a patrol of Portuguese cavalry found near the high road that led through a desert towards the Spanish frontier, the remains of a man, almost reduced to a skeleton, picked, gnawed, and torn asunder, to all appearance recently, by those devouring wolves and wild dogs which infest the mountains of the district. Terrible surmises of Quentin's fate were now whispered among the Borderers; the officer in command of the patrol was closely questioned by Middleton, Warriston, and others; but he constantly stated that the victim had probably been stripped by robbers before being devoured, as nothing had been found near the remains that might lead to their identification, or in any way connect them with the missing Quentin Kennedy. Thus, in default of other proof, as time wore on, the members of the regiment made up their minds to consider the poor bones as his, and concluded that he had perished miserably in the wilderness. To do Cosmo Crawford justice, there were times when he was not without secret emotions of shame, and even of compunction, for the part he had acted to Quentin. His own conscience, the small still voice that would speak, could not acquit him; but those gleams of the better spirit came only briefly and at intervals, and such unwelcome thoughts were always eventually stifled by the constitutional malignity of his nature, and he would mutter to himself-- "Pshaw! he is well away; what the devil was he to me, or I to him?"