THE QUEEN'S RANGERS A bullet had struck the hand rail, shattering one of the supports, and the broad steps were scarred and splintered.

The man lay face upward, his feet inside the hallway, one side of his head crushed in.

He was roughly dressed in woolen shirt and patched smallclothes, and wore gold hoops in his ears, his complexion dark enough for a mulatto, with hands seared and twisted.

Surely the fellow was no soldier; he appeared more to me like one who had followed the sea.

I stepped over his body, and glanced the length of the hall.