Robbins, with his usual sneer.

"I've two pounds in the world: Hewitt and Long maybe have a little more, and, again, maybe, they have less. Why it would take us years to make up the money!"

The two others looked as if they quite endorsed this latter view, and Blunt himself was puzzled for a moment or two. Then his face cleared.

"I tell you what it is: our Captain is a regular good fellow; we'll tell him the whole matter from beginning to end, and I feel sure he will advance the money we can't make up, deducting so much a day from our pay till the lot is cleared off."

"Well, but you have nothing to do with it, Jack! I won't have you though I am one of the 'common people'-paying share for my faults!" said Robbins.

The rest very strongly expressed the same views, and eventually Blunt had to retire from his proposed share in the transaction. The next step was to get the Captain's consent to their plan, and with that view all four of them, introduced by Sergeant Benham, managed to obtain a private interview the following morning.

Captain Dolman smiled when he had heard the story, and the singular request appended to it. "I confess," he said, "it seems to me rather a Quixotic affair, and decidedly a flinging away of your money;

however, all of you, except Blunt, certainly are more or less responsible for turning the lad's head, and it is only fair you should do your best to set him on his pins again. I don't believe you'll succeed—I warn you of that—but I shan't stand in the way of giving him a chance, and you can have an advance of the money. More, don't trouble about getting bills printed ; I'll see to that, and write to a fellow in Bow Street to have them posted, and distributed in the places the police think the most likely. That'll do now; I'm busy."

The men thanked him heartily, and were about to withdraw, when Blunt remembered Blunt remembered another little

matter.

"But about the desertion, sir; I presume we'll be able to have that entry cancelled when the money is paid in ?"

"Oh, certainly, certainly; I can easily manage that with the Colonel-will see to it this evening."

They saluted and withdrew-much poorer (for many a long month to come) but much better men-at least three of them-than when they entered Captain Dolman's luxurious quarters.

For a week or ten days they were in a great state of anxiety: then one morning Sergeant Benham entered the room with the glad news that the Cap

tain had advices from London to say that Charley Greydon had been found.

"Poor fellow!" went on the sergeant; "he was in an awful state of destitution, and the peelers thought he wouldn't have lasted much longer. However, they handed him his discharge, gave him a good suit of clothes the Captain had sent up, placed a trifle of money (from the same source) in his hand, and packed him down to his friends in Somersetshire!" The men gave a heartfelt cheer of delight, and set-to shaking one another's hands in pure joy that the lost one had been found, and restored to his home. John Blunt before many months were over managed to get down to see his protégé, carrying with him ample proofs that the 'Dead-man's Scratch' had been in all cases sustained through pure accident or the handiwork of his comrades. But he had no need to warn Greydon against giving way to superstitions -his real sufferings in London had opened his eyes on that point, and showed him the insane folly of believing in any supernatural power other than that of the Creator. Blunt also learnt that the mother, on receipt of the second letter, had in her anguish done exactly what Mr. Eldred said-scraped up every penny she had, and sent it to her son, with directions to go to a certain 'wise man,' whose address she

knew, in London, for immediate charms to counteract the Dead-man's Scratch. This sage individual had taken all Charley's money, persuaded him to sell his uniform and equipments for more, and had then kicked him out of doors, with the eye-opening information that he (Charley) was the biggest young fool he had ever come across. Blunt got great thanks and praise for his conduct in the affair; indeed the only ones whose sufferings lasted for any length of time were the three practical jokers, whose pockets long bled until the discharge money was made up -but they well deserved it, and the universal verdict in the regiment was that "it sarved 'em right!" Charley Greydon entered a Dragoon regiment in India soon afterwards, and, after seeing many a hard fight, is now Regimental Sergeant-Major of his corps.

But the legend of his mysterious disappearance has never left Canterbury, and round many a barrack-room fire in the dreary winter evenings, young recruits are treated to the tale of how the Old Gentleman flew away one morning with the trumpeter of Hussars who had been marked three times with the Dead-man's Scratch!

THE

CAPTAIN'S 'BAPTISM OF FIRE.'

CHAPTER I.

THE NIGHT PATROL.

"HOLD up, you brute!" growled out Bob Gilbert

as his charger stumbled heavily in a rugged lane whose dangers were considerably enhanced by a pitch-dark night. "Hold up, will you? Suppose you want to break my neck for fear I should be starved or shot?" and the weakly, half-grown youth-who only a few short months before had been a saddler's apprentice in Fleet Street-went off into a long murmuring growl at the hardships and miseries of his lot ever since he had joined the 'British Legion' in Spain under De Lacy Evans.

Why, Bob, what's the matter with your horse, man? If you will only do as I tell you, and ride him easily on the curb, instead of on the snaffle, he's not near so likely to stumble; and if he does, you can recover him at once. Why he was as near as a toucher on his head just now!"

It was John Blunt, Corporal in the English regiment of Lancers, who spoke, and as he was in com