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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 23217 ***
+
+
+
+
+THE ROLL-CALL OF THE REEF
+
+By A. T. Quiller-Couch ("Q.")
+
+
+"Yes, sir," said my host, the quarryman, reaching down the relics from
+their hook in the wall over the chimneypiece; "they've hung here all my
+time, and most of my father's. The women won't touch 'em; they're afraid
+of the story. So here they'll dangle, and gather dust and smoke, till
+another tenant comes and tosses 'em out o' doors for rubbish. Whew! 'tis
+coarse weather, surely."
+
+He went to the door, opened it, and stood studying the gale that beat
+upon his cottage-front, straight from the Manacle Reef. The rain drove
+past him into the kitchen, aslant like threads of gold silk in the shine
+of the wreck-wood fire. Meanwhile, by the same firelight, I examined the
+relics on my knee. The metal of each was tarnished out of knowledge. But
+the trumpet was evidently an old cavalry trumpet, and the threads of
+its party-colored sling, though fretted and dusty, still hung together.
+Around the side-drum, beneath its cracked brown varnish. I could
+hardly trace a royal coat-of-arms and a legend running, "Per Mare Per
+Terrain"--the motto of the marines. Its parchment, though black and
+scented with wood-smoke, was limp and mildewed; and I began to tighten
+up the straps--under which the drumsticks had been loosely thrust--with
+the idle purpose of trying if some music might be got out of the old
+drum yet.
+
+But as I turned it on my knee, I found the drum attached to the
+trumpet-sling by a curious barrel-shaped padlock, and paused to examine
+this. The body of the lock was composed of half a dozen brass rings,
+set accurately edge to edge; and, rubbing the brass with my thumb, I saw
+that each of the six had a series of letters engraved around it.
+
+I knew the trick of it, I thought. Here was one of those word padlocks,
+once so common; only to be opened by getting the rings to spell a
+certain word, which the dealer confides to you.
+
+My host shut and barred the door, and came back to the hearth.
+
+"'Twas just such a wind--east by south--that brought in what you've got
+between your hands. Back in the year 'nine, it was; my father has told
+me the tale a score o' times. You're twisting round the rings, I see.
+But you'll never guess the word. Parson Kendall, he made the word, and
+he locked down a couple o' ghosts in their graves with it; and when his
+time came he went to his own grave and took the word with him."
+
+"Whose ghosts, Matthew?"
+
+"You want the story, I see, sir. My father could tell it better than I
+can. He was a young man in the year 'nine, unmarried at the time, and
+living in this very cottage, just as I be. That's how he came to get
+mixed up with the tale."
+
+He took a chair, lighted a short pipe, and went on, with his eyes fixed
+on the dancing violet flames:
+
+"Yes, he'd ha' been about thirty year old in January, eighteen 'nine.
+The storm got up in the night o' the twenty-first o' that month. My
+father was dressed and out long before daylight; he never was one to
+bide in bed, let be that the gale by this time was pretty near lifting
+the thatch over his head. Besides which, he'd fenced a small 'taty-patch
+that winter, down by Lowland Point, and he wanted to see if it stood the
+night's work. He took the path across Gunner's Meadow--where they buried
+most of the bodies afterward. The wind was right in his teeth at the
+time, and once on the way (he's told me this often) a great strip of
+oarweed came flying through the darkness and fetched him a slap on the
+cheek like a cold hand. But he made shift pretty well till he got to
+Lowland, and then had to drop upon hands and knees and crawl, digging
+his fingers every now and then into the shingle to hold on, for he
+declared to me that the stones, some of them as big as a man's head,
+kept rolling and driving past till it seemed the whole foreshore was
+moving westward under him. The fence was gone, of course; not a stick
+left to show where it stood; so that, when first he came to the place,
+he thought he must have missed his bearings. My father, sir, was a
+very religious man; and if he reckoned the end of the world was at
+hand--there in the great wind and night, among the moving stones--you
+may believe he was certain of it when he heard a gun fired, and, with
+the same, saw a flame shoot up out of the darkness to windward, making
+a sudden fierce light in all the place about. All he could find to
+think or say was, 'The Second Coming! The Second Coming! The Bridegroom
+cometh, and the wicked He will toss like a ball into a large country';
+and being already upon his knees, he just bowed his head and 'bided,
+saying this over and over.
+
+"But by'm by, between two squalls, he made bold to lift his head and
+look, and then by the light--a bluish color 'twas--he saw all the coast
+clear away to Manacle Point, and off the Manacles in the thick of the
+weather, a sloop-of-war with topgallants housed, driving stern foremost
+toward the reef. It was she, of course, that was burning the flare. My
+father could see the white streak and the ports of her quite plain
+as she rose to it, a little outside the breakers, and he guessed easy
+enough that her captain had just managed to wear ship and was trying to
+force her nose to the sea with the help of her small bower anchor and
+the scrap or two of canvas that hadn't yet been blown out of her. But
+while he looked, she fell off, giving her broadside to it foot by foot,
+and drifting back on the breakers around Carn Du and the Varses. The
+rocks lie so thick thereabout that 'twas a toss up which she struck
+first; at any rate, my father could'nt tell at the time, for just then
+the flare died down and went out.
+
+"Well, sir, he turned then in the dark and started back for Coverack to
+cry the dismal tidings--though well knowing ship and crew to be past any
+hope, and as he turned the wind lifted him and tossed him forward 'like
+a ball,' as he'd been saying, and homeward along the foreshore. As
+you know, 'tis ugly work, even by daylight, picking your way among the
+stones there, and my father was prettily knocked about at first in
+the dark. But by this 'twas nearer seven than six o'clock, and the day
+spreading. By the time he reached North Corner, a man could see to read
+print; hows'ever, he looked neither out to sea nor toward Coverack, but
+headed straight for the first cottage--the same that stands above North
+Corner to-day. A man named Billy Ede lived there then, and when my
+father burst into the kitchen bawling, 'Wreck! wreck!' he saw Billy
+Ede's wife, Ann, standing there in her clogs with a shawl over her head,
+and her clothes wringing wet.
+
+"'Save the chap!' says Billy Ede's wife, Ann.
+
+"'What d'ee mean by crying stale fish at that rate?'
+
+"'But 'tis a wreck, I tell 'ee.'
+
+"'Ive a-zeed 'n, too; and so has every one with an eye in his head.'
+
+"And with that she pointed straight over my father's shoulder, and he
+turned; and there, close under Dolor Point, at the end of Coverack town,
+he saw another wreck washing, and the point black with people, like
+emmets, running to and fro in the morning light. While he stood staring
+at her, he heard a trumpet sounded on board, the notes coming in little
+jerks, like a bird rising against the wind; but faintly, of course,
+because of the distance and the gale blowing--though this had dropped a
+little.
+
+"'She's a transport,' said Billy Ede's wife, Ann, 'and full of
+horse-soldiers, fine long men. When she struck they must ha' pitched the
+horses over first to lighten the ship, for a score of dead horses had
+washed in afore I left, half an hour back. An' three or four soldiers,
+too--fine long corpses in white breeches and jackets of blue and gold. I
+held the lantern to one. Such a straight young man!'
+
+"My father asked her about the trumpeting.
+
+"'That's the queerest bit of all. She was burnin' a light when me an'
+my man joined the crowd down there. All her masts had gone; whether they
+carried away, or were cut away to ease her, I don't rightly know. Her
+keelson was broke under her and her bottom sagged and stove, and she
+had just settled down like a sitting hen--just the leastest list to
+starboard; but a man could stand there easy. They had rigged up ropes
+across her, from bulwark to bulwark, an' besides these the men were
+mustered, holding on like grim death whenever the sea made a clean
+breach over them, an' standing up like heroes as soon as it passed. The
+captain an' the officers were clinging to the rail of the quarterdeck,
+all in their golden uniforms, waiting for the end as if 'twas King
+George they expected. There was no way to help, for she lay right beyond
+cast of line, though our folk tried it fifty times. And beside them
+clung a trumpeter, a whacking big man, an' between the heavy seas he
+would lift his trumpet with one hand, and blow a call; and every time he
+blew the men gave a cheer. There [she says]--hark 'ee now--there he
+goes agen! But you won't hear no cheering any more, for few are left to
+cheer, and their voices weak. Bitter cold the wind is, and I reckon
+it numbs their grip o' the ropes, for they were dropping off fast with
+every sea when my man sent me home to get his breakfast. Another
+wreck, you say? Well, there's no hope for the tender dears, if 'tis the
+Manacles. You'd better run down and help yonder; though 'tis little help
+any man can give. Not one came in alive while I was there. The tide's
+flowing, an' she won't hold together another hour, they say.'
+
+"Well, sure enough, the end was coming fast when my father got down to
+the point. Six men had been cast up alive, or just breathing--a seaman
+and five troopers. The seaman was the only one that had breath to speak;
+and while they were carrying him into the town, the word went round
+that the ship's name was the 'Despatch,' transport, homeward-bound
+from Corunna, with a detachment of the Seventh Hussars, that had been
+fighting out there with Sir John Moore. The seas had rolled her further
+over by this time, and given her decks a pretty sharp slope; but a dozen
+men still held on, seven by the ropes near the ship's waist, a couple
+near the break of the poop, and three on the quarterdeck. Of these three
+my father made out one to be the skipper; close by him clung an
+officer in full regimentals--his name, they heard after, was Captain
+Dun-canfield; and last came the tall trumpeter; and if you'll believe
+me, the fellow was making shift there, at the very last, to blow 'God
+Save the King.' What's more, he got to 'Send us victorious,' before an
+extra big sea came bursting across and washed them off the deck--every
+man but one of the pair beneath the poop--and he dropped his hold before
+the next wave; being stunned, I reckon. The others went out of sight at
+once, but the trumpeter--being, as I said, a powerful man as well as a
+tough swimmer--rose like a duck, rode out a couple of breakers, and came
+in on the crest of the third. The folks looked to see him broke like
+an egg at their very feet; but when the smother cleared, there he was,
+lying face downward on a ledge below them; and one of the men that
+happened to have a rope round him--I forgot the fellow's name, if I ever
+heard it--jumped down and grabbed him by the ankle as he began to slip
+back. Before the next big sea, the pair were hauled high enough to be
+out of harm, and another heave brought them up to grass. Quick work, but
+master trumpeter wasn't quite dead; nothing worse than a cracked head
+and three staved ribs. In twenty minutes or so they had him in bed, with
+the doctor to tend him.
+
+"Now was the time--nothing being left alive upon the transport--for my
+father to tell of the sloop he'd seen driving upon the Manacles. And
+when he got a hearing, though the most were set upon salvage, and
+believed a wreck in the hand, so to say, to be worth half a dozen they
+couldn't see, a good few volunteered to start off with him and have a
+look. They crossed Lowland Point; no ship to be seen on the Manacles
+nor anywhere upon the sea. One or two was for calling my father a liar.
+'Wait till we come to Dean Point,' said he. Sure enough, on the far side
+of Dean Pont they found the sloop's mainmast washing about with half a
+dozen men lashed to it, men in red jackets, every mother's son drowned
+and staring; and a little further on, just under the Dean, three or four
+bodies cast up on the shore, one of them a small drummer-boy, side-drum
+and all; and near by part of a ship's gig, with 'H.M.S. Primrose' cut
+on the stern-board. From this point on the shore was littered thick with
+wreckage and dead bodies--the most of them marines in uniform--and in
+Godrevy Cove, in particular, a heap of furniture from the captain's
+cabin, and among it a water-tight box, not much damaged, and full of
+papers, by which, when it came to be examined, next day, the wreck was
+easily made out to be the 'Primrose,' of eighteen guns, outward bound
+from Portsmouth, with a fleet of transports for the Spanish war--thirty
+sail, I've heard, but I've never heard what became of them. Being
+handled by merchant skippers, no doubt they rode out the gale, and
+reached the Tagus safe and sound. Not but what the captain of the
+'Primrose'--Mein was his name--did quite right to try and club-haul his
+vessel when he found himself under the land; only he never ought to have
+got there, if he took proper soundings. But it's easy talking.
+
+"The 'Primrose,' sir, was a handsome vessel--for her size one of the
+handsomest in the King's service'--and newly fitted out at Plymouth
+Dock. So the boys had brave pickings from her in the way of brass-work,
+ship's instruments, and the like, let alone some barrels of stores not
+much spoiled. They loaded themselves with as much as they could carry,
+and started for home, meaning to make a second journey before the
+preventive men got wind of their doings, and came to spoil the fun.
+'Hullo!' says my father, and dropped his gear, 'I do believe there's
+a leg moving?' and running fore, he stooped over the small drummer-boy
+that I told you about. The poor little chap was lying there, with his
+face a mass of bruises, and his eyes closed; but he had shifted one
+leg an inch or two, and was still breathing. So my father pulled out a
+knife, and cut him free from his drum--that was lashed on to him with a
+double turn of Manila rope--and took him up and carried him along here
+to this very room that we're sitting in. He lost a good deal by this;
+for when he went back to fetch the bundle he'd dropped, the preventive
+men had got hold of it, and were thick as thieves along the foreshore;
+so that 'twas only by paying one or two to look the other way that he
+picked up anything worth carrying off: which you'll allow to be hard,
+seeing that he was the first man to give news of the Wreck.
+
+"Well, the inquiry was held, of course, and my father gave evidence, and
+for the rest they had to trust to the sloop's papers, for not a soul was
+saved besides the drummer-boy, and he was raving in a fever, brought on
+by the cold and the fright. And the seaman and the five troopers gave
+evidence about the loss of the 'Despatch,' The tall trumpeter, too,
+whose ribs were healing, came forward and kissed the book; but somehow
+his head had been hurt in coming ashore, and he talked foolish-like, and
+'twas easy seen he would never be a proper man again. The others were
+taken up to Plymouth, and so went their ways; but the trumpeter stayed
+on in Coverack; and King George, finding he was fit for nothing, sent
+him down a trifle of a pension after a while-enough to keep him in board
+and lodging, with a bit of tobacco over.
+
+"Now the first time that this man--William Tallifer he called
+himself--met with the drummer-boy, was about a fortnight after the
+little chap had bettered enough to be allowed a short walk out of doors,
+which he took, if you please, in full regimentals. There never was a
+soldier so proud of his dress. His own suit had shrunk a brave bit with
+the salt water; but into ordinary frock an' corduroys he declared he
+would not get, not if he had to go naked the rest of his life; so my
+father--being a good-natured man, and handy with the needle--turned to
+and repaired damages with a piece or two of scarlet cloth cut from the
+jacket of one of the drowned Marines. Well, the poor little chap chanced
+to be standing, in this rig out, down by the gate of Gunner's Meadow,
+where they had buried two score and over of his comrades. The morning
+was a fine one, early in March month; and along came the cracked
+trumpeter, likewise taking a stroll.
+
+"'Hullo!' says he; 'good mornin'! And what might you be doin' here?'
+
+"'I was a-wishin',' says the boy, 'I had a pair o' drumsticks. Our lads
+were buried yonder without so much as a drum tapped or a musket fired;
+and that's not Christian burial for British soldiers.'
+
+"'Phut!' says the trumpeter, and spat on the ground; 'a parcel of
+Marines!'
+
+"The boy eyed him a second or so, and answered up: 'If I'd a tav of turf
+handy, I'd bung it at your mouth, you greasy cavalryman, and learn you
+to speak respectful of your betters. The Marines are the handiest body
+o' men in the service.'
+
+"The trumpeter looked down on him from the height of six-foot two, and
+asked: 'Did they die well?'
+
+"'They died very well. There was a lot of running to and fro at first,
+and some of the men began to cry, and a few to strip off their clothes.
+But when the ship fell off for the last time, Captain Mein turned and
+said something to Major Griffiths, the commanding officer on board, and
+the Major called out to me to beat to quarters. It might have been for a
+wedding, he sang it out so cheerful. We'd had word already that 'twas to
+be parade order; and the men fell in as trim and decent as if they were
+going to church. One or two even tried to shave at the last moment. The
+Major wore his medals. One of the seamen, seeing I had work to keep the
+drum steady--the sling being a bit loose for me, and the wind what you
+remember--lashed it tight with a piece of rope; and that saved my life
+afterward, a drum being as good as a cork until it's stove, I kept
+beating away until every man was on decks and then the Major formed them
+up and told them to die like British soldiers, and the chaplain was in
+the middle of a prayer when she struck. In ten minutes she was gone.
+That was how they died, cavalryman.'
+
+"'And that was very well done, drummer of the Marines. What's your
+name?'
+
+"'John Christian.'
+
+"'Mine's William George Tallifer, trumpeter, of the Seventh Light
+Dragoons--the Queen's Own. I played "God Save the King" while our men
+were drowning. Captain Duncanfield told me to sound a call or two, to
+put them in heart; but that matter of "God Save the King" was a notion
+of my own. I won't say anything to hurt the feelings of a Marine, even
+if he's not much over five-foot tall; but the Queen's Own Hussars is
+a tearin' fine regiment. As between horse and foot, 'tis a question o'
+which gets a chance. All the way from Sahagun to Corunna 'twas we that
+took and gave the knocks--at Mayorga and Rueda, and Bennyventy.'--The
+reason, sir, I can speak the names so pat, is that my father learnt
+'em by heart afterward from the trumpeter, who was always talking
+about Mayorga and Rueda and Bennyventy.'--We made the rear-guard, under
+General Paget; and drove the French every time; and all the infantry did
+was to sit about in wine-shops till we whipped 'em out, an' steal an'
+straggle an' play the tomfool in general. And when it came to a
+stand-up fight at Corunna, 'twas we that had to stay seasick aboard the
+transports, an' watch the infantry in the thick o' the caper. Very well
+they behaved, too--specially the Fourth Regiment, an' the Forty-Second
+Highlanders, an' the Dirty Half-Hundred. Oh, ay; they're decent
+regiments, all three. But the Queen's Own Hussars is a tearin' fine
+regiment. So you played on your drum when the ship was goin' down?
+Drummer John Christian, I'll have to get you a new pair of sticks.'
+
+"The very next day the trumpeter marched into Helston, and got a
+carpenter there to turn him a pair of box-wood drumsticks for the boy.
+And this was the beginning of one of the most curious friendships you
+ever heard tell of. Nothing delighted the pair more than to borrow a
+boat off my father and pull out to the rocks where the 'Primrose' and
+the 'Despatch' had struck and sunk; and on still days 'twas pretty
+to hear them out there off the Manacles, the drummer playing his
+tattoo--for they always took their music with them--and the trumpeter
+practising calls, and making his trumpet speak like an angel. But if
+the weather turned roughish, they'd be walking together and talking;
+leastwise the youngster listened while the other discoursed about Sir
+John's campaign in Spain and Portugal, telling how each little skirmish
+befell; and of Sir John himself, and General Baird, and General Paget,
+and Colonel Vivian, his own commanding officer, and what kind of men
+they were; and of the last bloody stand-up at Corunna, and so forth, as
+if neither could have enough.
+
+"But all this had to come to an end in the late summer, for the boy,
+John Christian, being now well and strong again, must go up to Plymouth
+to report himself. 'Twas his own wish (for I believe King George had
+forgotten all about him), but his friend wouldn't hold him back. As for
+the trumpeter, my father had made an arrangement to take him on as
+lodger, as soon as the boy left; and on the morning fixed for the start,
+he was up at the door here by five o'clock, with his trumpet slung by
+his side, and all the rest of his belongings in a small valise. A Monday
+morning it was, and after breakfast he had fixed to walk with the boy
+some way on the road toward Helston, where the coach started. My father
+left them at breakfast together, and went out to meat the pig, and do a
+few odd morning jobs of that sort. When he came back, the boy was still
+at table, and the trumpeter sat with the rings in his hands, hitched,
+together just as they be at this moment.
+
+"'Look at this,' he says to my father, showing him the lock. 'I picked
+it up off a starving brass-worker in Lisbon, and it is not one of your
+common locks that one word of six letters will open at any time.
+There's janius in this lock; for you've only to make the rings spell any
+six-letter word you please and snap down the lock upon that, and never
+a soul can open it--not the maker, even--until somebody comes along that
+knows the word you snapped it on. Now Johnny here's goin', and he leaves
+his drum behind him; for, though he can make pretty music on it, the
+parchment sags in wet weather, by reason of the sea-water getting at it;
+an' if he carries it to Plymouth, they'll only condemn it and give
+him another. And, as for me, I shan't have the heart to put lip to the
+trumpet any more when Johnny's gone. So we've chosen a word together,
+and locked 'em together upon that; and, by your leave, I'll hang 'em
+here together on the hook over your fireplace. Maybe Johnny'll come
+back; maybe not. Maybe, if he comes, I'll be dead an' gone, and he'll
+take 'em apart an' try their music for old sake's sake. But if he never
+comes, nobody can separate 'em; for nobody besides knows the word. And
+if you marry and have sons, you can tell 'em that here are tied together
+the souls of Johnny Christian, drummer of the Marines, and William
+George Tallifer, once trumpeter of the Queen's Own Hussars. Amen.'
+
+"With that he hung the two instruments 'pon the hook there; and the boy
+stood up and thanked my father and shook hands; and the pair went out of
+the door, toward Helston.
+
+"Somewhere on the road they took leave of one another; but nobody saw
+the parting, nor heard what was said between them. About three in the
+afternoon the trumpeter came walking back over the hill; and by the time
+my father came home from the fishing, the cottage was tidied up, and the
+tea ready, and the whole place shining like a new pin. From that time
+for five years he lodged here with my father, looking after the house
+and tilling the garden. And all the while he was steadily failing; the
+hurt in his head spreading, in a manner, to his limbs. My father watched
+the feebleness growing on him, but said nothing. And from first to last
+neither spake a word about the drummer, John Christian; nor did any
+letter reach them, nor word of his doings.
+
+"The rest of the tale you're free to believe, sir, or not, as you
+please. It stands upon my father's words, and he always declared he was
+ready to kiss the Book upon it, before judge and jury. He said, too,
+that he never had the wit to make up such a yarn; and he defied any one
+to explain about the lock, in particular, by any other tale. But you
+shall judge for yourself.
+
+"My father said that about three o'clock in the morning, April
+fourteenth, of the year 'fourteen, he and William Tallifer were sitting
+here, just as you and I, sir, are sitting now. My father had put on his
+clothes a few minutes before, and was mending his spiller by the light
+of the horn lantern, meaning to set off before daylight to haul the
+trammel. The trumpeter hadn't been to bed at all. Toward the last he
+mostly spent his nights (and his days, too) dozing in the elbow-chair
+where you sit at this minute. He was dozing then (my father said) with
+his chin dropped forward on his chest, when a knock sounded upon the
+door, and the door opened, and in walked an upright young man in scarlet
+regimentals.
+
+"He had grown a brave bit, and his face the color of wood-ashes; but it
+was the drummer, John Christian. Only his uniform was different from
+the one he used to wear, and the figures '38' shone in brass upon his
+collar.
+
+"The drummer walked past my father as if he never saw him, and stood by
+the elbow-chair and said:
+
+"'Trumpeter, trumpeter, are you one with me?'
+
+"And the trumpeter just lifted the lids of his eyes, and answered: 'How
+should I not be one with you, drummer Johnny--Johnny boy? If you come, I
+count; if you march, I mark time; until the discharge comes.'
+
+"'The discharge has come to-night,' said the drummer; and the word is
+Corunna no longer.' And stepping to the chimney-place, he unhooked
+the drum and trumpet, and began to twist the brass rings of the lock,
+spelling the word aloud, so--'C-O-R-U-N-A.' When he had fixed the last
+letter, the padlock opened in his hand.
+
+"'Did you know, trumpeter, that, when I came to Plymouth, they put me
+into a line regiment?'
+
+"'The 38th is a good regiment,' answered the old Hussar, still in his
+dull voice; 'I went back with them from Sahagun to Corunna. At Corunna
+they stood in General Fraser's division, on the right. They behaved
+well.
+
+"'But I'd fain see the Marines again,' says the drummer, handing him
+the trumpet; 'and you, you shall call once more for the Queen's Own.
+Matthew,' he says, suddenly, turning on my father--and when he turned,
+my father saw for the first time that his scarlet jacket had a round
+hole by the breast-bone, and that the blood was welling there--'Matthew,
+we shall want your boat.'
+
+"Then my father rose on his legs like a man in a dream, while they two
+slung on, the one his drum, and t'other his trumpet. He took the lantern
+and went quaking before them down to the shore, and they breathed
+heavily behind him; and they stepped into his boat, and my father pushed
+off.
+
+"'Row you first for Dolor Point,' says the drummer. So my father rowed
+them past the white houses of Coverack to Dolor Point, and there, at
+a word, lay on his oars. And the trumpeter, William Tallifer, put his
+trumpet to his mouth and sounded the reveille. The music of it was like
+rivers running.
+
+"'They will follow,' said the drummer. Matthew, pull you now for the
+Manacles.
+
+"So my father pulled for the Manacles, and came to an easy close outside
+Carn Du. And the drummer took his sticks and beat a tattoo, there by the
+edge of the reef; and the music of it was like a rolling chariot.
+
+"'That will do,' says he, breaking off; 'they will follow. Pull now for
+the shore under Gunner's Meadow.'
+
+"Then my father pulled for the shore and ran his boat in under Gunner's
+Meadow. And they stepped out, all three, and walked up to the meadow.
+By the gate the drummer halted, and began his tattoo again, looking out
+toward the darkness over the sea.
+
+"And while the drum beat, and my father held his breath, there came up
+out of the sea and the darkness a troop of many men, horse and foot, and
+formed up among the graves; and others rose out of the graves and formed
+up--drowned Marines with bleached faces, and pale Hussars, riding
+their horses, all lean and shadowy. There was no clatter of hoofs or
+accoutrements, my father said, but a soft sound all the while like the
+beating of a bird's wing; and a black shadow lay like a pool about the
+feet of all. The drummer stood upon a little knoll just inside the
+gate, and beside him the tall trumpeter, with hand on hip, watching them
+gather; and behind them both my father, clinging to the gate. When no
+more came, the drummer stopped playing, and said, 'Call the roll.'
+
+"Then the trumpeter stepped toward the end man of the rank and called,
+'Troop Sergeant-Major Thomas Irons,' and the man answered in a thin
+voice, 'Here.'
+
+"'Troop Sergeant-Major Thomas Irons, how is it with you?'
+
+"The man answered, 'How should it be with me? When I was young, I
+betrayed a girl; and when I was grown, I betrayed a friend, and for
+these I must pay. But I died as a man ought. God save the King!'
+
+"The trumpeter called to the next man, 'Trooper Henry Buckingham,' and
+the next man answered, 'Here.'
+
+"'Trooper Henry Buckingham, how is it with you?'
+
+"'How should it be with me? I was a drunkard, and I stole, and in Lugo,
+in a Wine-shop, I killed a man. But I died as a man should. God save the
+King!'
+
+"So the trumpeter went down the line; and when he had finished, the
+drummer took it up, hailing the dead Marines in their order. Each man
+answered to his name, and each man ended with 'God save the King!' When
+all were hailed, the drummer stepped back to his mound, and called:
+
+"'It is well. You are content, and we are content to join you. Wait,
+now, a little while.'
+
+"With this he turned and ordered my father to pick up the lantern, and
+lead the way back. As my father picked it up, he heard the ranks of the
+dead men cheer and call, 'God save the King!' all together, and saw them
+waver and fade back into the dark, like a breath fading off a pane.
+
+"But when they came back here to the kitchen, and my father set the
+lantern down, it seemed they'd both forgot about him. For the drummer
+turned in the lantern-light--and my father could see the blood still
+welling out of the hole in his breast--and took the trumpet-sling from
+around the other's neck, and locked drum and trumpet together again,
+choosing the letters on the lock very carefully. While he did this, he
+said.
+
+"'The word is no more Corunna, but Bayonne. As you left out an "n" in
+Corunna, so must I leave out an "n" in Bayonne.' And before snapping the
+padlock, he spelt out the word slowly--'B-A-Y-O-N-E.' After that, he
+used no more speech; but turned and hung the two instruments back on the
+hook; and then took the trumpeter by the arm; and the pair walked out
+into the darkness, glancing neither to right nor left.
+
+"My father was on the point of following, when he heard a sort of
+sigh behind him; and there, sitting in the elbow-chair, was the very
+trumpeter he had just seen walk out by the door! If my father's heart
+jumped before, you may believe it jumped quicker now. But after a bit,
+he went up to the man asleep in the chair and put a hand upon him. It
+was the trumpeter in flesh and blood that he touched; but though the
+flesh was warm, the trumpeter was dead.
+
+"Well, sir, they buried him three days after; and at first my father was
+minded to say nothing about his dream (as he thought it). But the day
+after the funeral, he met Parson Kendall coming from Helston market; and
+the parson called out: 'Have 'ee heard the news the coach brought down
+this mornin'?' 'What news?' says my father. 'Why, that peace is agreed
+upon.' 'None too soon,' says my father. 'Not soon enough for our poor
+lads at Bayonne,' the parson answered. 'Bayonne!' cries my father, with
+a jump. 'Why, yes;' and the parson told him all about a great sally the
+French had made on the night of April 13th. 'Do you happen to know
+if the 38th Regiment was engaged?' my father asked. 'Come, now,' said
+Parson Kendall, 'I didn't know you was so well up in the campaign. But,
+as it happens, I do know that the 38th was engaged, for 'twas they that
+held a cottage and stopped the French advance.'
+
+"Still my father held his tongue; and when, a week later, he walked
+in Helston and bought a 'Mercury' off the Sherborne rider, and got the
+landlord of the 'Angel' to spell out the list of killed and wounded,
+sure enough, there among the killed was Drummer John Christian, of the
+38th Foot.
+
+"After this there was nothing for a religious man but to make a clean
+breast. So my father went up to Parson Kendall, and told the whole
+story. The parson listened, and put a question or two, and then asked:
+
+"'Have you tried to open the lock since that night?'
+
+"'I haven't dared to touch it,' says my father.
+
+"'Then come along and try.' When the parson came to the cottage here, he
+took the things off the hook and tried the lock. 'Did he say "Bayonne?'
+The word has seven letters.'
+
+"'Not if you spell it with one "n" as he did,' says my father.
+
+"The parson spelt it out--'B-A-Y-O-N-E' 'Whew!' says he, for the lock
+had fallen open in his hand.
+
+"He stood considering it a moment, and then he says: 'I tell you what. I
+shouldn't blab this all round the parish, if I was you. You won't get no
+credit for truth-telling, and a miracle's wasted on a set of fools. But
+if you like, I'll shut down the lock again upon a holy word that no one
+but me shall know, and neither drummer nor trumpeter, dead or alive,
+shall frighten the secret out of me.'
+
+"'I wish to heaven you would, parson,' said my father.
+
+"The parson chose the holy word there and then, and shut the lock back
+upon it, and hung the drum and trumpet back in their place. He is gone
+long since, taking the word with him. And till the lock is broken by
+force nobody will ever separate those two."
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 23217 ***