Frederick Watson

“ At that moment footsteps sounded along the corridor, and the key of the door was turned.
Into the room stepped Captain Strange.
"Poor Rob," he said with a grin, "you're like a ghost. No used your bed? Come, come, I thought better of you than that. Not afraid, are you, Rob?"
"If I were afraid I would do what you want, but you will never have that satisfaction."
"Never is a strong word, Rob. I would not use that word to the Duke, boy..."
"He can hang me, but it will be without a fair trial."
Strange leaned his arm upon the window ledge. ”

“ To put it quite simply, the summit of the hill was like a saucer, while instead of a smooth slope down which the defenders could pick off the ascending foe, the cover was so ample that it was possible for the Boers to shoot the British against the sky-line without exposing themselves.
General Colley had expressed no deeper design than his wish that the men should hold the hill for three days. He made no preparations for the defence, he forbade the troops to entrench themselves, and so the day dawned, and the Boers awakened to the fact that Majuba Hill was occupied by the British. ”

“ Miss Macpherson was very tall and exceedingly gaunt. Her countenance was as bleak as a wind-swept hillside, and there was a stony glare in her grey eyes which seemed to turn the very atmosphere to frost. Her figure was all points and angles—jutting out where her shoulders rose towards her neck, and seeming to extend indefinitely into her arms. Rob knew those long, sinewy arms with their thin, gnarled hands ever ready to swoop. Miss Macpherson's customary attitude was like that of a great bird of prey, mightily beaked and clawed, pouncing swiftly, and rising again to sit and watch upon a crag. ”

“ Moving out the cavalry with four guns, Roberts began to shell the outlying villages. Distracted by this manœuvre, the Afghans’ assault exhausted itself, and the moment for a counter-attack arrived. Suddenly the cavalry swept down on their crowded masses, and in a moment the enemy were in confused retreat. The end was come. Once in disorder they scattered far and wide, pursued by every available man and horse. By evening all the neighbouring country was perfectly silent, just as though no battle had ever raged. The Afghans had vanished like smoke. ”

“ But there was far worse to come, for at the noise of that terrible stricken voice there came a wild plunging of a horse outside and the dying thud of feet. Murray of Broughton was gone. Perhaps his beast bolted with terror; perhaps he waited and dreaded that Rob was killed—who can tell? He was of all men least able to endure suspense.
At that calamity there came to Rob a wild terror of the place and a panic to be gone. He reached the hole in the corner and dropped down upon the mud below. The fresh rain was blowing in upon his face from the open doorway where Murray had passed. ”

“ Just as the Coldstreams received in silence and flung back again the furious onslaught of the Prussian Guard at Ypres, so Maitland’s Brigade and the British Guards awaited the attack. The Frenchmen passed perfectly steadily across the open, shelled unceasingly by the British guns, and fired upon by the British infantry. They were quite unshaken. When Ney’s horse crashed to the earth beneath him he pointed the way on foot. It was like the tramp of a deathless army. ”

“ Out on the Firth of Forth a ship was running up her canvas to the breeze, and it set him wondering in an idle fashion whether Muckle John might not be already aboard starting for France.
And then the sunlight faded and the greyness of the gloaming crept up from the sea.
Clink, clink, went the chains upon the forlorn gibbet tree, and with a deeper rustier note as the wood groaned and shuddered in its joints.
He walked slowly up the sloping sandy path. Above him, black above the evening sky swung the dead man—some poor soul less guilty of wrong maybe than he himself. ”