The Hidden Children by Robert William Chambers Chapter 17 Page 32

he asked. “By God, they’ll never get their artillery through here. Mark it, all the same,” he added indifferently, and seated himself beside me, dropping his rifle across his knees with a gesture of weariness.

“Are you tired?” I asked.

He looked up at me with a wan smile.

“Weary of myself, Loskiel, and of a life lived too lightly and now nigh ended.”

“Nigh ended!” I repeated.

“I go not back again,” he said, sombrely.

I glanced sharply at him, where he sat brooding over his rifle; and there was in his face an expression such as I had never before seen there — something unnatural