When Brooks came to himself once more, out of a dream as it were, as he stood upright and looked at the little broken line of men at the left, he realized that he, Brooks Major, the captain of the school, was in command. He, an officer of twenty-four hours, in command of an isolated detachment of men away out on the African plains, outnumbered, outgeneralled, almost hopeless and with all the responsibility resting upon him.

The Captain, who lay at his feet, motioned with his finger, and Brooks put his ear to the stiffening lips. “Hold the men," he gasped,-"hold the men all you can as long as you can. Wait for your orders. Don't let the old corps dishonor itself. Stand by our colors. Wait-for-your-orders-" That was all, and the man who was shot passed

on.

The men had settled down now into stolid quietude. There was no hope, no thought for the next moment, only a low crouching to the earth, a flattening of their bodies, a straining of their eyes towards the hilltop, nothing more. It was past noon. For some reason the fighting over yonder, over where the main body of the troops lay, had slackened.

As Brooks with his own hands loosened the sheath to the colors, and un

For the Queen in South Africa. By Caryl Davis Haskins. Copyright, 1900, by Little, Brown & Co.

rolled softly and reverently the Union Jack, his thoughts went back to the old school, which he felt he would never see again.

He gathered together little clods of earth and roots of grass around the staff of the flag until it would stand alone, for he would not let the color sergeant stand to hold it. As the breeze, now scarcely more than a breath, gently fluttered the silken folds, all up and down the line there came a hearty cheer, and Brooks' heart swelled within him, for he thought they were cheering the flag; but in an instant he saw it was not so.

Away out on the veldt, now half hidden in flying dust and now in clear sunshine, rode a man on a galloping horse. Brooks watched him with heart standing still.

The man sat close and low, with his body bent well forward and down to the neck of the horse. Around the end of the hill he swept spurring hard, and then, when the speck of the horse began to grow larger, and Brooks knew that his orders were coming, the firing on the hill, which had wellnigh died out, began again in sharp, rhythmic volleys, some seconds apart, but constant and steady; and all at once the galloping horse fell into a trot, and the trot slowed down to a walk, and the man on him began to disengage one foot as if to dismount, when all at once his hands went up,

his legs straightened, the horse went out from under him, and a poor lone Lancer lay away out on the veldt with Brooks' orders in his pockets.

At Sandhurst they teach many things. They build excellent bridges out of telegraph poles, they float pontoons in water where the mud scarce settles before the next exercises begin; but there is one thing which from time to time a soldier has to do which they do not teach at Sandhurst, they do not teach men to think.

When Brooks realized that away out on the veldt lay his orders, that between those orders and him stretched a space of almost certain death, and that he was there in command, with the lives of nigh a hundred men in his hands (two hundred a few hours before), his courage failed him for an instant. Then with a jerk he came back to the spiteful, fiery, busy world around him.

He got down on his hands and knees cautiously, and flattened himself on the earth, full of the thought of his own preciousness, and crept over where the first sergeant of his company lay, flattened like a pannikin, behind a little bush. "I say, look here, Sergeant, he said; "those are our orders." The sergeant, much bedraggled, with a little dried-up crimson rivulet down his face, and one hand in his pocket because he could not get it out, saluted with the wrong hand, and said, "Yes, sir, our orders, sir."

Brooks stopped and thought a moment. "Look here, Sergeant, I am a good bit of a young 'un, and I haven't belonged to the corps long." The sergeant grinned. "So I want your advice, Sergeant. What do you

think we had better do?"

The sergeant, as if on the cricket field, plucked and chewed a blade of grass reflectively, and said, after deep musing: "Well, sir, as you ask me, sir, I think we had best obey orders."

Brooks groaned in spirit, and crawled away again.

Over on the other side of the hill there was only an occasional shot, and the sun was getting angular in the western heavens. Brooks did not know what to do. Finally he thought it out In this wise. "We were sent out here to make a distraction in favor of the main body of troops. When orders reached us, we were to go up and strike and bring those Johnnies over this side, and let the General walk up the other. That is what we were to do when the orders came. The orders haven't come; but they started, they are out there now on the veldt, and I can't get them."

Brooks rose and walked out to the front of the men, held his new sword up over his head, the sword that we fellows had given him, and stood as if on parade. "Company, attention!" The men held up their heads and looked towards him. He turned to the first sergeant, and said, "Sergeant, form up the men!"

The men rose from the ground, wondering. They were past fear now, and as they rose the ripple of shots broke out again, and some of them never stood up entirely.

Then, in the face of that fire, Brooks fixed bayonets, swung into company front, and turned once more to face the men; and this is what he said: "Sergeant, bring those colors to the front. Give them to me. We are going up there to give those Johnnies a shove. Every man play close up to the ball, and don't forget good old England!"

He turned, waved his colors once, threw his sword away and started up the hill,-started up the hill in the face of a sea of fire, with scarce a hundred men behind him, up in the face of over three thousand.

Over the gradual rise they swept, with a short, sharp cheer, dropping

men at every step. Brooks ran well ahead-one arm hanging loose at his side, the colors pointed forward-ran with the strong springy run of the football player, well ahead of his men, with the sergeant next behind him, followed by seventy-five men, followed by fifty, followed by thirty, up to where the hill became steep and where some went on their hands and knees to follow and never rose again.

Up the final slope he went, followed by fifteen. Up to the parapet, with the Union Jack well advanced, with the good old school-cry on his lips, "Play up close to the ball! On the ball!" With his heart in football, with never a thought of battle, until he reached almost the top of the parapet, and strange faces looked down upon himfaces with deep-set lines, and blue-gray eyes looking along rifle-barrels. Then he fired his pistol into those faces once, twice, three times, and for the first time that day Martinis cracked on the windward side of the hill.

The next instant Brooks staggered to the top of the parapet, the Union Jack waving. The staff came down with a punch into the sandy soil and twenty rifles barked and snarled under his nose.

The few men who had been behind him turned and ran, and dear old

Brooks, the captain of the team, plunged limply down head-first among the sea of men within the trench, and alone, unnoted, unthought of, the Union Jack, without a man to hold it, fluttered grimly from the hilltop of the Boers.

The shadows of the veldt bush were long. A scattering fire had burst out again on the opposite side of the hill and now out over the parapet there swarmed a motley crew of half-clad fellows, big, bony and strong.

As the sun dipped and the quick twilight of the African autumn spread over the land, a little ring of desperate men, close huddled together, guns and wagons abandoned, retreated across the plain, driven steadily all night, back towards the coast, back toward the spot where the run rose, struggling, fighting, cursing, always driven back, carrying with them disaster, sorrow and disgrace to the British arms.

Up on the hilltop, empty now save for the silent forms that lay here and there, or for some angel of mercy who flitted from tangled group to group with water-can, up there in the light of the moon, with his face to the ground, lay Brooks, the Captain of the School, our Brooks, who had always led us to victory.

"Ladies and gentlemen," cried the old chevalier, clapping his hands together to attract the attention of all those in the room, "this brilliant young author and poet, who needs no introduction to you, has consented to read his latest production. Will you kindly take places?"

*Robert Tournay. By William Sage. right, 1900, by Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

Copy

There was some polite applause. "The poem! let us hear the poem," buzzed upon all sides, and the throng began to settle down around the poet, the ladies occupying the chairs, and the gentlemen either leaning against the walls or seated upon stools by the side of those ladies in whose eyes they found particular favor.

In a few moments a hush of expect