A company officer was making his round of an outlying picket of Grenadiers; the black hour before a drizzling dawn effectually shrouded moist features and sodden whiskers, as bearskin and greatcoat served to modify an erect yet incorrigibly casual carriage. It was Ralph Devenish, however, and he was performing his duties with some punctilio. The sentries stood their twenty paces apart, all but invisible to each other, sundered links waiting for the dawn to complete the chain. And at each link the officer halted and beat his foot.
"All's well."
"Except your rifle, eh?" muttered Devenish to one or two; from a third he took the man's dripping piece, and from the n****e poured a tiny jet of water into the palm of his left hand. "Keep it covered if you can, or it will never go off," was his a
