Part 66 (1/2)

'So you were right, after all, dick It was a mistake to take that mare

I've always been confoundedly obstinate; I admit that Too late to think of it now, isn't it?'

'Anything else I can do?' says Sir Ferdinand

'Give her this ring,' he pulls it off his finger, 'and you'll see Maddie Barnes gets the old horse, won't you? Poor old Rainbow! I know she'll take care of hiht He's the property of the Government now, you know; but I'll square it somehow The General won't object under the circumstances'

Then he shuts his eyes for a bit After a while he calls out--

'dick! dick Marston'

'I'm here,' says I

'If you ever leave this, tell Aileen that her name was the last word I spoke--the very last She foresaw this day; she toldtoo, this week back Well, it's over now I don't know that I'er, do you reha down, and looking into his face 'It can't be; yes, by Jove, it is----'

He spoke soer on his lips, and whispers--

'You won't tell, will you? Say you won't?'

The other nodded

He smiled just like his old self

'Poor Aileen!' he says, quite faint His head fell back Starlight was dead!

Chapter 50

The breath was hardly out of hih the scrub on to the little plain, with a man on his back that seemed hurt bad or drunk, he rolled in his saddle so The head of him was bound up with a white cloth, and what you could see of it was dark-looking, with bloodstains on it I knew the figure and the seat on a horse, though I couldn't see his face He didn't seeth, but he was one of those sort of riders that can't fall off a horse, that is unless they're dead Even then you'd have to pull hi on soal!

They all knew him when he came close up, but none of the troopers raised their pieces or thought of stopping hiht into the middle of us he'd have looked like that He stopped his horse, and slipped off on his feet somehow

He'd had a dreadful wound, any one could see There was blood on the rags that bound his head all up, and being round his forehead and over his chin it made him look more and more like a corpse Not ht like two coals of fire

Up to Starlight's body he goes and sits himself down by it He takes the dead man's head into his lap, looks down at the face, and bursts out into the awfullest sort of crying and lafor their dead with the blood and tears running down their faces together I've known the fro a bite or sup the whole time I've seen white people that's lost an only child that had, maybe, been all life and spirits an hour before But in all my life I have never seen no rief as Warrigal did for his master--the only hu stiff on the ground before him

He lifts up the dead face and wipes the blood froe (or leastways his roaned and shook all over as if the very life was going out of hiround and looks round Sir Ferdinand gives him his handkerchief, and he lays it over the face Then he turns away fro and wretched that I couldn't help pitying hi as far as we could see