“Strip, Sir!” repeated the Colonel, having observed that the prisoner seemed reluctant to obey the first order. “Colonel,” replied he, in a determined tone, “I’ll volunteer.”[3] “You’ll volunteer, will you, Sir?” “Yes; sooner than I’ll be flogged.” “I am not sorry for that. Such fellows as you can be of no use to the service except in Africa. Take him back to the guard-house, and let the necessary papers be made out for him immediately.” The latter sentence was addressed to the Corporal of the guard who escorted the prisoners, and accordingly the man who volunteered was marched off, a morose frown and contemptuous sneer strongly marked on his countenance. The Colonel now addressed the other prisoner. “You are the last man in the regiment I could have expected to find in this situation. I made you a corporal, Sir, from a belief that you were a deserving man; and you had before you every hope of farther promotion; but you have committed such a crime that I must, though unwillingly, permit the sentence of the court which tried you to take its effect.” Then turning to the Sergeant-major, he ordered him to cut off the Corporal’s stripes from his jacket: this was done, and the prisoner then stripped without the slightest change in his stern but penitent countenance. Every one of the regiment felt for the unfortunate Corporal’s situation; for it was believed that nothing but intoxication, and the persuasion of the other prisoner who had volunteered, could have induced him to subject himself to the punishment he was about to receive, by committing such a breach of military law, as that of which he was convicted. The Colonel, himself, although apparently rigorous and determined, could not, by all his efforts, hide his regret that a good man should be thus punished: the affected frown, and the loud voice in command, but ill concealed his real feelings;--the struggle between the head and the heart was plainly to be seen; and had the head had but the smallest loophole to have escaped, the heart would have gained a victory. But no alternative was left; the man had been a _Corporal_, and, therefore, was the holder of a certain degree of trust from his superiors: had he been a private only, the crime might have been allowed to pass with impunity, on account of his former good character; but, as the case stood, the Colonel could not possibly pardon him, much as he wished to do so. No officer was more averse to flogging in any instance, than he was; and whenever he could avert that punishment, consistent with his judgment, which at all times was regulated by humanity, he would gladly do it. Flogging was in his eyes an odious punishment, but he found that the _total_ abolition of it was impossible; he therefore held the power over the men, but never used it when it could be avoided. His regiment was composed of troublesome spirits; and courts-martial were frequent: so were sentences to the