Tyson called up his twenty men and ran to his tent for arms.  The papers were still there in the box of cartridges.

He hesitated for a second.  He realized with a sudden lucidity that if he died, and those damning documents were found, there would be a slur on his memory out of keeping with the end.  He could not have it said that the last words he had written had been an apology and a lie.

He tore the papers across, once, twice—­no time for more—­and rushed into the desert, his heart beating with the brutal, jubilant lust of battle.

CHAPTER XXIII

IN MEMORIAM

Later on news came of that heroic stand made by Tyson and his men—­a mere handful against hundreds of the enemy.  He had led them in their last mad rush on a line of naked steel; he had fallen first, face downwards, pierced through the back and breast.  He died fighting.

Even in Drayton Parva, where all things are remembered, his sins are forgotten.  Nay, more, they forbear to speak of his wife’s sins out of respect for the memory of a brave man.

In Drayton Parish Church there is a stained glass window with a figure of St. Michael; he has a drawn sword in his hand and the flames of hell are about his feet.  That window is dedicated

TO THE GLORY OF GOD AND THE MEMORY OF NEVILL TYSON.

So they remember.

And out there, in the great Soudan, there is a wooden cross that mounts guard over a long mound.  Already it is buried up to its arms in the shifting sand; by to-morrow the dead and their place will be one with the eternal desert.  And the desert remembers nothing, neither glory nor sin.