Page:Biggers and Ritchie - Inside the Lines.djvu/189

 home for the military head of the fortress—a little dreary, a shade more melancholy than the accustomed manor hall at home, but adequate and livable.

Thither, on the morning after his arrival. Captain Woodhouse went to report for duty to Major-general Sir George Crandall, Governor of the Rock. Captain Woodhouse was in uniform—neat service khaki and pith helmet, which became him mightily. He appeared to have been molded into the short-skirted, olive-gray jacket; it set on his shoulders with snug ease. Perhaps, if anything, the uniform gave to his features a shade more than their wonted sternness, to his body just the least addition of an indefinable alertness, of nervous acuteness. It was nine o'clock, and Captain Woodhouse knew it was necessary for him to pay his duty call on Sir George before the eleven o'clock assembly.

As the captain emerged from the straggling end of Waterport Street, and strode through the flowered paths of the Alameda, he did not happen to see a figure that dodged behind a chevaux-de-frise of Spanish bayonet on his approach. Billy Capper, who had been pacing