"Let us drink 'sweethearts and wives,' as we used to do in the transport." "Agreed," said I; and as we clinked our glasses together and exchanged glances, I knew that his thoughts went back to Craigaderyn, even as mine recurred to that moonlight night on the terrace at Yalta. "You remained with the burial party," said he, after a pause. "Yes, and I saw something which convinced me that the fewer tender ties we fighting men have, the better for our own peace. An officer of the 19th lay among the dead, a man past forty apparently. A paper was peeping from the breast of his coat; I pulled it out, and it proved to be a letter, received perhaps that morning--a letter from his wife, thrust hastily into his breast, as we marched to the front. A little golden curl was in it, and there was written in a child's hand, 'Cecil's love to dearest papa.' I must own that the incident, at such a time and place, affected me; so I replaced the letter in the poor fellow's breast, and we buried it with him. So papa lies in a rifle-pit, with mamma's letter and little Cecil's lock of hair; but, after all, king Death did not get much of him--the poor man had been nearly torn to pieces by a cannon shot." "I saw you in advance of the whole line of skirmishers to-day, Harry, far beyond the zigzags." "I was actually at the foot of the glacis." "The glacis--was not that madness?" exclaimed Phil. "The truth is, I did so neither through enthusiastic courage nor in a spirit of bravado. I was only anxious to see if from behind the sap-roller that protected me, my field-glass could enable me to detect among the gray-coated figures at the embrasures, the tall person and grim visage of old Tolstoff." "By Jove, I thought as much!" "But I looked in vain, and retired in crab-fashion, the bullets falling in a shower about me the while." At that moment a knock rung on the door of the hut, and Sergeant Rhuddlan, who acted as our regimental postman, handed a small packet to me. "The second battalion of the Scots Royals, the 48th, and the 72nd Highlanders have just come in, sir, from Balaclava, and have brought a mail with them," said he, in explanation; and while he was speaking, we heard the sound of drums and bagpipes, half drowned by cheers in the dark, as those in camp welcomed the new arrivals from home, and helped to get them tented and hutted. "From Craigaderyn!" said I, on seeing the seal--Sir Madoc's antique oval--with the lion's head _erased_, as the heralds have it.