“Well, I ain’t goin’ to amuse my prisoner alone. ’E’s gettin’ ’omesick,” cried Copper. “One of you thieves read out what’s vexin’ Old Barbarity an’ ’is ’arem these days. You’d better listen, Burjer, because, afterwards, I’m goin’ to fall out an’ perpetrate those nameless barbarities all over you to keep up the reputation of the British Army.” From that English weekly, to bar out which a large and perspiring staff of Press censors toiled seven days of the week at Cape Town, did Pinewood of the Reserve read unctuously excerpts of the speeches of the accredited leaders of His Majesty’s Opposition. The night-picket arrived in the middle of it, but stayed entranced without paying any compliments, till Pinewood had entirely finished the leading article, and several occasional notes. “Gentlemen of the jury,” said Alf Copper, hitching up what war had left to him of trousers—“you’ve ’eard what ’e’s been fed up with. _Do_ you blame the beggar? ’Cause I don’t! … Leave ’im alone, McBride. He’s my first and only cap-ture, an’ I’m goin’ to walk ’ome with ’im, ain’t I, Ducky? … Fall in, Burjer. It’s Bermuda, or Umballa, or Ceylon for you—and I’d give a month’s pay to be in your little shoes.” As not infrequently happens, the actual moving off the ground broke the prisoner’s nerve. He stared at the tinted hills round him, gasped and began to struggle—kicking, swearing, weeping, and fluttering all together. “Pore beggar—oh pore, _pore_ beggar!” said Alf, leaning in on one side of him, while Pinewood blocked him on the other. “Let me go! Let me go! Mann, I tell you, let me go——” “’E screams like a woman!” said McBride. “They’ll ’ear ’im five miles off.” “There’s one or two ought to ’ear ’im—in England,” said Copper, putting aside a wildly waving arm. “Married, ain’t ’e?” said Pinewood. “I’ve seen ’em go like this before—just at the last. ’_Old_ on, old man, No one’s goin’ to ’urt you.” The last of the sun threw the enormous shadow of a kopje over the little, anxious, wriggling group. “Quit that,” said the Serjeant of a sudden. “You’re only making him worse. Hands _up_, prisoner! Now you get a holt of yourself, or this’ll go off.” And indeed the revolver-barrel square at the man’s panting chest seemed to act like a tonic; he choked, recovered himself, and fell in between Copper and Pinewood. As the picket neared the camp it broke into song that was heard among the officers’ tents: ’E sent us ’is blessin’ from London town, (The beggar that kep’ the cordite down,) But what do we care if ’e smile or frown, The beggar that kep’ the cordite down? The mildly nefarious Wildly barbarious Beggar that kept the cordite down! Said a captain a mile away: “Why are they singing _that?_ We haven’t had a mail for a month, have we?” An hour later the same captain said to his servant: “Jenkins, I understand the picket have got a—got a newspaper off a prisoner to-day. I wish you could lay hands on it, Jenkins. Copy of the _Times_, I think.”