Next, still swearing, he tried to drag the skeleton
out of the saddle, but found that it had been wired into the cantle. The sight
of the Colonel, with his arms round the skeleton's pelvis and his knee in the
old Drum-Horse's stomach, was striking. Not to say amusing. He worried the
thing off in a minute or two, and threw it down on the ground, saying to the
Band:--"Here, you curs, that's what you're afraid of." The skeleton did not
look pretty in the twilight. The Band-Sergeant seemed to recognize it, for he
began to chuckle and choke. "Shall I take it away, sir?" said the Band-
Sergeant. "Yes," said the Colonel, "take it to Hell, and ride there
yourselves!"
The Band-Sergeant saluted, hoisted the skeleton across his saddle-bow, and led
off to the stables. Then the Colonel began to make inquiries for the rest of
the Regiment, and the language he used was wonderful. He would disband the
Regiment--he would court-martial every soul in it--he would not command such a
set of rabble, and so on, and so on. As the men dropped in, his language grew
wilder, until at last it exceeded the utmost limits of free speech allowed even
to a Colonel of Horse.
Martyn took Hogan-Yale aside and suggested compulsory retirement from the
service as a necessity when all was discovered.
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