The Arab must have been concealed behind one of the figures, or in a recess which had escaped the explorer's notice, and, not possessing fire-arms himself, had not chosen to attack while his enemy's rifle was certain to be loaded; but directly he heard him fire he seized his opportunity with the promptitude of a really good soldier, and went for him before he could re-load.

Kavanagh brought his weapon down to the charge and waited for him, and now a really interesting set-to began, and it was a pity there was no one to witness it. The Arab, a fanatic fakir, approached with his shield well advanced, and his sword, which a man might have shaved with, in his strong right-hand, watching for an opening. He made a cut; Kavanagh turned it with his bayonet and re-posted. The thrust was parried by the shield, but the force of it made the Arab stagger back.

Kavanagh followed, feinted low, and when the shield went down delivered the point over the top of it, just touching his opponent's chest, who saved his life by jumping back with a slight wound. Kavanagh followed further into the cavern. Each now knew that the other was not to be trifled with, and they circled round, eyes glaring into eyes, trying to draw on an attack, the statues around looking straight before them, heedless witnesses of the conflict. Kavanagh feinted again, but the Arab was not to be caught by the same trick a second time, and instead of warding the thrust seized that moment to make a dash and a cut, and his sword bit deeply into the other's side, cutting through bandolier and kharkee into the flesh.

Kavanagh, wounded, but not disabled, at the same moment dashed his rifle, held across, into his opponent's face, and as he staggered back darted his bayonet at him over the shield, piercing his shoulder. Yet he could still swing his right arm, still wield his razor-edged weapon.

And still they faced each other, bleeding freely. Kavanagh had this in his mind fixedly, that if he thrust the point of his bayonet through the shield, and so got it entangled, he was done, for his active opponent would step within distance, and cut him down in a moment. As if to force him to risk this, the Arab suddenly crouched down, and covering himself well with his shield, made a spring at him, cutting at his left arm. Kavanagh jumped back and saved his wrist, but it was so near a thing that the edge of the sword touched his hand, severing the little finger, which fell on the ground, and making a deep cut in the rifle stock. Unaware of the mutilation, Kavanagh re-posted, darting out his weapon over the shield with his right-hand, and piercing his enemy through the neck.

But even for such a wound as that the brave Soudanese would not be denied, but forced his way to close quarters, and cut his enemy over the side of the head; a blow which would have been instantly fatal had it been delivered with his accustomed force, but the wound through the shoulder took the strength out of it, and loss of blood and the shock of the throat wound helped to weaken him; indeed, his sword dropped from his hand with the effort. Kavanagh, almost blind with the blood which deluged his face, shortened arms and sought to transfix his assailant, who, however, managed to seize the muzzle of the rifle and close, and a species of rough-and-tumble conflict ensued for about half a minute, each striving to throw the other, and both as weak as babies.

Kavanagh, however, had most strength left, for though both were losing much blood, that which ebbed from the Arab drained more important veins, and the wound in his throat especially was terrible. His grasp relaxed, his eyes lost the light of fanaticism and the joy of combat, and grew filmy and expressionless, and he fell heavily at the foot of a gigantic, blubber-lipped statue.

Kavanagh caught up his rifle and turned the bayonet downwards, but there was no fight left in his foe, and in spite of the customs of this barbarous war he could not thrust. So he left the Arab lying there, and staggered to the portal, where he was forced to lean against a pillar, so giddy and faint was he. He had enough strength and wits left, however, to slip a cartridge into his rifle and fire it off, as a guide to his friends where to find him; and it was as well he did so, as they were searching for him close by, and might not have hit upon the entrance to the cave-temple for some time, so curiously was it masked by the rocks. The report, however, directed them right, and just as Kavanagh was slipping from the pillar to the ground, he heard a voice say—

"Here he is, sir!" and saw comrades close, though their voices sounded somehow a long way off.

"My eye, you have had a good bout, mate;" one said to him, "but where is the other fellow?"

"In there," replied Kavanagh, faintly; "don't kill him, he's a good 'un."

"Dinna kill him, indeed!" said Macintosh, presently, as he bent over the body of the Arab and took his scarf for bandages. "There's nae much need for any one to do that!"

Kavanagh's wounds were rudely bound up, just to check the bleeding for the present, and the officer having some spirits in a flask gave him a drain, and asked him if he thought he could walk down to camp. Being somewhat revived, he said he could, and set out, supported by a couple of men, one on each side. It was a slow progress, but the distance was not great, and he managed to get down all right, and then a surgeon dressed his wounds for him.

"The bandolier and a tobacco-pipe in the pocket of your kharkee jacket have done you a good turn, my lad," he said; "for the body cut has gone right through them, and might have been fatal but for that resistance. It is pretty deep as it is, but you will be all right; and your other hurts are not serious, only sword cuts. But your little finger will not grow again, you know."

The wounds might not be serious in a surgeon's estimation, but they were very painful, and to feel so weak and helpless was depressing to the spirits. The attack, however, had been successful, and the handful of sharp-shooters killed or effectually dispersed, for no more shots were fired at the convoy either that evening, during the night, or on the following morning, when it got under weigh again. So he had the pleasure of reflecting that his discomforts were not altogether incurred in vain. The most provoking thing he found was to be told that he was so very lucky only to be slashed all over with sword cuts, and not to have any bullet wounds. What he had got ached and smarted and throbbed to an extent calculated to try the patience of Job, and what was the use of endeavouring to persuade him that he was one of the favourites of fortune? He succeeded to the seat on a camel vacated by the ill-fated Binks, and every jolt hurt his side; the head and hand wounds were not much affected by the motion, but every violent jerk caused the other to gape and bleed, and the dressing had to be renewed at every halt where water was obtainable. But the comrade who rode alongside and congratulated him on not having any gun-shot wounds meant well, and he restrained his impatience. Only when Grady, whom he credited with more sense, went on the same tack, he said, "Thank you, Paddy; did you ever see a codfish crimped?"

"No, sure, but I have seen a salmon."

"Alive?"

"In course; it's no use doing it after he's dead."

"And did you congratulate him?"

"Indeed, I did not, and it was a cruel thing I thought it," said Grady. "Ah, and sure I see what you are after! And it is like a crimped fish ye are with the deep slashes, and only those would think light of them who have not got them. But you will soon be all right again after the clane cuts, while a poke or a bullet-hole is a long time haling if it does not kill ye entirely. That is what the boys mane."

It was after a couple of days that Kavanagh was able to hold this conversation. Before that he was incapacitated for talking not only by weakness, but also because the cut on the side of his head had reached his cheek, and slicing through it nicked the tongue.

Taking food and drink was therefore quite painful enough just at first without talking. But it was surprising how quickly this part began to heal. He could not smoke yet, however, and that resource for whiling away some of the long hours failed him.

"It was a regular duel ye had with the haythen in his temple, and ye won it fair and square, anyhow, without shooting," said Grady. "The other was as dead as Julius Sayser when the boys saw him, for I was not to the fore myself, having had my little tour the day before."

"I remember," said Kavanagh. "And how is your prisoner getting on? He has not slipped away yet, has he?"

"Sorra a bit of it, he seems quite plazed to be living with dacent people for a change. He tould the interpreter that it was a mighty great friend of the Mahdi's ye killed; a man some people reckoned very holy—a faker he called him. At least, a man like that lived up by that cavern ye discovered."

"I don't know who he was," said Kavanagh, "but I wish he had recovered. He was a game one that, to fight as he did after he got his death- wound."

Sergeant Barton, who came up just then, heard this last remark, and said, smiling—

"That is true enough, but his opponent must have a good bit of pluck, too, it seems to me."

"Not so much as you think," replied Kavanagh, meditatively. "I do not say it out of mock modesty, but it is a simple fact that fear of that sharp edge made me strain all my faculties to keep it at a distance. But I was horribly afraid of it all the same."

"Well, I suppose that the other was afraid of your bayonet point, if you come to that."

"I don't believe it; he did not mind it more than a pin, if he could only kill me at the same time."

Here an officer came up and asked Kavanagh how he was; adding, "I have good news for you. We shall reach Korti to-day, and then you will be more comfortable."



CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.

IN THE RANKS OF THE ENEMY.

Harry Forsyth had put off the evil day as long as he could, but at length he found himself forced to turn an apparent traitor to his Queen and country, or else to give up the object of his journey when his trials, dangers, and sufferings had been crowned with success, and probably to lose his life into the bargain.

The detachment in which the Sheikh Burrachee held a command came to a precipitous rocky mountain overlooking the Nile, and here they were to stop the English advance. No position could have been more judiciously chosen: the rocks looked down on a narrow gorge of the river still more straightened by an island named Dulka, which it was determined to garrison strongly with riflemen, and there was debate as to who should undertake this duty. Harry hoped that it would be the tribe with which his uncle had become associated, and of which he himself was now supposed to be a member, because he thought it would be hardly difficult to slip away down the stream somehow, by swimming if no other means were to be had, and so join the English before they attacked, and avoid even the appearance of being a partaker of his uncle's crimes. But this chance was denied to him, and others went to the island, while the Sheikh Burrachee and his men were posted in the steepest part, the very citadel of this natural fortress.

To escape from there before the assault was obviously impossible. Up to that time Harry had taken it for granted in his own mind that his countrymen would carry any position they chose, with more or less loss, and pass on, but he now began to fear that this one was really impregnable. Parts of it were difficult to climb if unopposed, but with an enemy with a rifle in his hand behind every crag and boulder, it looked simply impossible for any living thing to make the ascent. Now for the first time Harry Forsyth became an active hypocrite, for he had only been a passive one up to this. He busied himself about to select a good commanding spot in which to ensconce himself with his rifle with an energy which delighted his uncle extremely. And so much was thought of his shooting that he was sure not to be interfered with.

"Not a man of them can ever pass the Rackabit el Gamel by water, and they can as soon take these rocks as scale the heavens. Here the freedom of the Soudan will be worked out; the authority of the Mahdi established!" exclaimed the sheikh. Rackabit el Gamel, or the Camel's Neck, is the name of the gorge by Dulka Island.

When the sun rose on the tenth of February, eighteen hundred and eighty- five, Harry Forsyth, from his lofty position on the heights of Kirbekan, strained his eyes in the direction from which the British force was expected to come. Nothing yet; yes, those red ants, as they seem in the far distance, what are they? And there were larger black ants in rear of them.

And now in the clearer light grey ants aligned with the red. The red ants, had he known it, were the Black Watch, going into action in their red coats and kilts; the grey were the men of the South Staffordshire Regiment; the large black ants in rear were the guns. He did not know these details, but he recognised English troops, not seen now for a long time by him, and his heart beat high with excitement and hope. Now was his chance of escape. Unless he were killed during the assault, or taken prisoner and shot before he had time to explain himself, he would surely be able to get away in the confusion of fight. Even if the English were repulsed, he could feign pursuit and so come up with them.

Suddenly he saw both red and grey masses scatter out from their centres, as they broke into extended order, and at the same time what he could now distinguish as cavalry swept round to the right. It was a beautiful sight. While he was gazing at it his uncle passed him in a state of great enthusiasm.

He waved a rifle with his right-hand, and a banner, with texts from the Koran inscribed upon it, with his left, and cried, "They come! They come! The Lord hath delivered them into our hands at last!" And it was with difficulty that he could restrain himself from forfeiting the advantages of the strong position, and rushing down to meet the advancing troops at once.

He had not long to restrain his impatience; the red and the grey lines swept into the base, and were among the boulders in a trice. Then the whole mountain side seemed to burst forth into flame and smoke, and from his commanding position Harry could see that here and there an advancing figure stopped, and came on no more, but dotted the ground with a scarlet or brown patch.

The scene would have resembled a holiday sham fight but for those figures which lay motionless, taking no further part, so orderly and regular was the advance. Presently the combat entered on a new phase. Unchecked by the storm of fire which had broken out upon them, the Highlanders and South Staffordshire pressed steadily on amongst the rocks; when there was room they squeezed between them; when this could not be done they swarmed over them; still they pressed steadily on. Steadily, indeed, but slowly. Behind each rock there was an Arab, and when a soldier wriggled round it or swarmed over it, he found himself engaged in a hand-to-hand conflict, in which, however, the bayonet generally proved victorious over sword or spear. It was most magnificent fighting; each individual man had to force his independent way in the face of a deadly fire from hidden foes, at whose covers he went straight. If he were hit there was an end of his course; but, if he stood up, into the hiding-place where his foe lay concealed, he was bound to go; and then, if he killed his man, as he mostly did, forwards and upwards at another. There was no sense of support afforded by the touch of comrades, and the being an item of a serried mass, as in the case of the majority of the battles of the Soudan, fought in square formation. Then there might be unsteady or pusillanimous soldiers, whose faults were hidden by their firmer comrades, from whose presence and example they gained confidence; but at Kirbekan every soldier fought on his own account, as it were, and failure in courage or dash in any individual would have been at once perceptible. But there was no such failure, and the Black Watch and South Staffordshire fought as British soldiers fought in the Peninsula, at Waterloo, at Alma, and at Inkerman.

Higher and higher they came, and the Arabs began to grow uncontrollably excited. The Sheikh Burrachee came to the post occupied by Harry, who immediately let loose his rifle at a fine rock near which there was nobody. But he might have spared himself the trouble; his uncle never noticed him; he only came there because the spot afforded the best view of a portion of the English advance.

"It is impossible!" he cried; "and yet there they are. Has Sheytan given them charmed lives?" and he charged down, waving his banner, and calling on his tribesmen to follow him and extirpate the infidels.

Harry saw him falter on the brow of a crag, stretch his arms wide, drop weapon and banner, and fall backwards. Forgetting everything else at the sight, he ran down to him and raised his head.

He was quite dead.

"Poor Uncle Ralph! You were kind to me, and you loved my dear mother. Would that you had met with a better fate!" he said, as he turned away, and looked about for the means of escape.

There was no reason for further delay; the Arabs had too much to do to look after themselves to notice him; and his uncle was dead!

Round the side of the rock he crept, keeping well under shelter, till he found a side where no fight was raging, and here he clambered cautiously down into the plain, and made for that part of the Nile where he had seen the English pontoons and boats.

After about an hour's cautious approach, he came near enough to hail the nearest sentry.

"I am an English prisoner, released by your attack!" he cried; and after his report of himself had been carefully heard by an officer, he was received with welcome and eagerly questioned as to what he knew about the progress of the fight.

"Most of the points had been carried when I made my escape," Harry said; "but I fear the loss has been very heavy."

Heavy indeed it proved when the full news came in! Colonel Eyre, commanding the South Staffordshire, fell at the head of his regiment at the first onset; Colonel Green was killed at the hottest moment of the struggle; and shortly afterwards General Earle, the commander of the expedition himself, was shot dead from a stubbornly-defended building.

Harry told his story, was examined, cross-examined, re-examined; for all he had to say was most interesting, and very different from the meagre and often contradictory reports to be gleaned from natives. He told them of the force in Dulka Island. But they knew of that, and heeded it not, finding no difficulty in shelling the Arabs there out of it without an attack.

The only thing he was reticent about was the story of his uncle. Poor, crack-brained visionary, he had gone to his account now, and what need was there to recount his treasonable vagaries?

An old Harton boy is almost sure to find some mutual acquaintance in any group of English officers he may fall in with in any part of the world, and when at the evening meal he was chatting with his hospitable entertainers, Strachan's name happened to be mentioned.

"What, Tom Strachan, of the Blankshire?" he cried.

"That's the man!"

"Is his regiment in the Soudan?"

"No, but he is. He is an active card, and volunteered to act on the staff, and has done a good bit of galloping business. I think he is working in the Transport now, at least he was when we heard last from Korti."

From this and all else he could gather Korti was the place Harry now had to try and make for, and he was soon once more on his travels down the river.

We will not follow his footsteps, since he met with no adventures to be compared at all with those he had gone through. And very glad he was of it, for the one thing he now dreaded most was delay.

He had not long been at Korti before he saw the very old friend he had been asking after, and soon got an opportunity of speaking to him, busy as he seemed to be.

"Don't you know me?" he asked.

"Know you! Of course I do, just as if you were my brother; but just now I forget whether it is tinned meats or bullocks. By Jove! Is it possible! Harry Forsyth! And how are you, old fellow? One would think Korti was the centre of the world, for every fellow comes here. I say, who was to know you dressed up like that? Well, and what are you up to? Have you found that will yet?"

"Yes."

"Nonsense! And got it?"

"Yes."

"You must tell me all about that. I was just going to get something to eat; come along and share it. You have fallen upon the right boy for grub, I can tell you; I am in the provisioning department just for the moment, and there is no order against looking after number one."

"And you found your uncle who had turned wild man?" observed Tom Strachan, as the two filled and lit their pipes after a capital repast.

"Yes, poor fellow!" answered Harry. "Without him I don't suppose I should have got the will."

"And where did you run your Egyptian clerk to earth?"

"At El Obeid, and we got it out of him with the kourbash."

"Of course; you know the cynical saying here. As Nature provides an antidote growing in the same district with every poison, all we have to do is to learn how to seek it. So when the Egyptian was placed on the Nile the hippopotamus was created to provide whips to rule him with. But you must tell your story at greater length to-morrow morning to a friend of mine who is lying wounded here, waiting for a chance to be transported to Cairo. For I have a lot of things to see to; reports to make out—you would never believe; and must run away presently."

Next morning Harry Forsyth called on Strachan at the time and place appointed, and was taken by him to the hospital which had been established near the banks of the river. They found the friend of Strachan's they proposed to visit lying on a bamboo couch under an awning, over which again spread a palm-tree. There was a pleasant view of the river and the country, and altogether it was as cheery a spot as could have been selected.

There was a visitor already with the invalid: a soldier who was standing near, his head leaning on his rifle.

"I tell ye what it is," he was saying; "I'll say nothing about flesh wounds and bullet wounds since it worries ye, but ye have the best luck of it to be wounded at all, in my thinking. Won't ye be getting out of this baste of a country at once, and shan't we poor beggars what's whole and sound have to stop here and stew, and be ate up with the flies entirely? I tell ye so long as ye aint crippled it's the best chance to be a bit hurt, and get away, now there's no more fighting to be done. And they say there will perhaps be some real fun going on in India, out Afghanistan way, against the Rooshians; and we will be left here with the flies and crocodiles. But here's the officer coming. I'll come and see you again, when I'm off duty."

And Grady stepped briskly away, making the sling of his rifle tell with a smart salute, as he passed Strachan. And then Harry Forsyth stepped up to the couch, and found himself looking on the drawn and pain-worn features of Reginald Kavanagh.

"I flatter myself that I have managed that with considerable dramatic talent," said Tom Strachan, as he stood looking at the two, holding each other's hands in silence, and looking into each other's eyes.

"Yes," said Harry Forsyth, answering the question in the other's look; "I have found it, and it is here in my breast, all perfectly right."

"Yes, he has found it," echoed Strachan. "Where there's a will there's a way, and the way in this instance was the kourbash. I hope the fellow got it hot, Harry."

"Pretty fairly; I think Kavanagh would have been satisfied, though he has been disappointed in his desire to wield the lash himself. Don't you remember?"

"Well, all you have got to do now," said Strachan to Kavanagh, "is to get back to England as quick as they will take you, purchase your discharge, and enjoy your otium cum dignitate."

"Thank you, sir; if you will kindly say a word for me it will help," replied Kavanagh.

The little word sir struck with strange harshness on Harry Forsyth's ears. But, of course, Kavanagh was but a full private, and Strachan was an officer, if he came to think and realise it. He had been about to say:

"Here we three chums have met at last, ever so many miles up the Nile, and I shall believe in presentiments as long as I live;" but he did not like, after that word sir, to class his two old friends in the same category; it might make an awkwardness, he felt.

"I do not like the idea of quitting the service altogether," said Kavanagh.

"If we have this war with Russia they talk about, and I get well in time, and can qualify, I wonder if I shall have a chance of getting a commission. Surely it will not be so difficult as it was when I tried before, and I nearly qualified. I wonder whether my service in the ranks would be allowed to count in any way."

"It very well might," said Strachan; "for there are all sorts of chances going when good men are really wanted. If not, you must go back into the old Militia Battalion of the Blankshire, as I mean to do when I am shelved; and then we shall get a chance of airing our medals, if they give us any, for one month in the year at any rate."

"And what are your wounds, Kavanagh?" asked Harry presently.

"Sword cuts; one in the body is troublesome, but is getting better since I got away from camel back, though sometimes I feel down-hearted, progress is so slow."

"Oh, you must not give way to that sort of feeling," said Forsyth. "Why, I lay senseless for months and months from a cut on the head; how long I have no idea yet; I shall have to puzzle it out some day, but at present it is logarithms over again to think of it. I should certainly have died if it had not been for my dear old black nurse, Fatima, the loss of whom is the only thing I shall regret in leaving this part of the world. And if ever I come back, it will be to hunt her out and buy her."

"Fatima! Come, now for a touch of romance, Harry!" cried Strachan, laughing.

"Black as your Sunday hat in London; blubber lips, hair like coarse wool; feet like canoes, and the best heart in the world, and—there she is!"

It was true enough; Fatima was searching about, looking for Harry Forsyth, just like a dear, faithful old dog. Ever since the episode of the letter she had thought he wanted to go to his own people, and sought how to aid him; after the fight at Kirbekan she lost him, and made her way down to Korti, as the best place, so far as she could learn, to gain tidings of any Englishman. The delight she expressed on thus unexpectedly seeing him again was touching to a degree.

"You will have some one else to nurse now, Fatima," said Harry in Arabic, pointing to Kavanagh.

"Your brother is my master; I will cure him!" she said, nodding cheerfully to Kavanagh, and showing her white teeth.

"I am afraid Fatima would want to be nurse and doctor all in one, as she was with me," said Harry, "and that would hardly agree with discipline. But you might do worse than that, I can tell you. Meantime, what am I to do with her, I wonder? Part from her willingly I never will. I tell you, Kavanagh, you would never have had a chance of your money, if I had not fallen into her hands, after I fell for dead in the wilderness; for I should never have pulled through but for her. How astonished my dear old mother and sister will be when I bring them a black servant! But she will soon learn their ways."

"You are my good genius, Forsyth," said Kavanagh; "and if you will call on the Principal Medical Officer, and other great authorities, I have no doubt you will be able to help me to get away the quicker."

"I should like to go home with you," said Forsyth, "and will if I can. Let us once get to Cairo, and I can raise any necessary money on the strength of this," and he tapped the will on his chest.

"Would it be too great a presumption to ask to see this portentous document?" asked Strachan. "I own to feeling some curiosity about it."

"Not at all." And he unwound it from its wrappings and produced it.

"And because a rascal clerk ran away with that bit of parchment, Kavanagh had to enlist as a private, and you had to go wandering over the world for years, leaving your mother and sister in poverty and anxiety!" said Tom Strachan, meditatively. "People are always talking about red tape in the army; surely there is still more of it in the law."

"Oh, yes, naturally one would expect that."

"Ah, well, I hope he got it hot; I do hope he got it hot! I will introduce you to all the people who can help you, Harry, but I must be off just now."

Forsyth got every assistance from the authorities to take his wounded friend away. And his old connection with Mr Williams and the English firm at Cairo stood him in good stead; so that he reached Cairo, and embarked for England with Fatima and her patient sooner than he had expected.



CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

AT SHEEN.

The severity of the May of 1885 had at last abated, and the arrows on the vanes proved that they had not got fixed by rust, as many suspected, in a north-easterly direction, by turning to the south and west, so that those inhabitants of Great Britain who had not succumbed to pneumonia were able to let their fires out, open their windows, and enjoy out-of- door games with impunity.

Mrs Forsyth and Beatrice now reaped the benefit of their work in the garden, for the tulips, the various arias and otises made the borders resplendent, while the delicious scent of the wallflowers was almost oppressive. The May blossom was full out on the hedge which bounded the little domain, and the apple-trees in that part devoted to fruit and vegetables were one mass of pink and white.

Though still at Sheen, the Forsyths were not in their original cottage. When their fortunes changed for the better, Mrs Forsyth had moved into a larger villa, with a verandah round it, and modest stabling, and a nice lawn. And on this lawn white chalk lines were drawn, and a net fixed, on one side of which Beatrice Forsyth, racquet in hand, was employed in affording exercise for her brother Harry, who was on the other. He took the large court to her small court, and as she had a special talent for placing the balls, she made him run about rarely. The original layer out of that garden, who flourished before lawn-tennis was invented, had perpetrated a prophetic pun by planting a service tree on one side of the ground, and under this sat Mrs Forsyth before a garden table which had wools and work-box on it, for she could not bear to sit idle. Not far from her, and still under the shade of the service tree, was a lounging chair or couch of cane and wicker-work of the most comfortable description, with arms so broad and flat that you could lodge books and papers upon them, and the right arm had a circular hollow to hold a tumbler.

In this chair reclined a good-looking young man, whose pale and delicate features and thin hands told of recent illness, and together with a crimson scar across his face gave him that appearance which ladies call interesting, the effect being heightened by the shawls and rugs which were strewn about him. Rice paper and a packet of Egyptian tobacco lay on one of the arms of his couch, but it was only between the games that he occasionally twiddled up a cigarette, so conscientiously did he attend to his duties as umpire.

"Vantage out," said Harry, who was serving. Beatrice returned the ball high, and very far back-indeed, and immediately cried—

"I think it was just in!"

"I think not," said Harry, grinning. "How was it, umpire?"

"Line ball!" said Kavanagh, who from his position could not possibly have seen.

"Game and set!" cried Trix, delighted, though as a matter of fact the ball had fallen a foot beyond the base line, and they both came to the tree for a rest.

"I hope you will be able to play yourself soon," said Harry Forsyth.

"I could play now," replied Kavanagh; "my side does not hurt me a bit whatever I do. It is only weakness that stops me, and I feel stronger every morning."

"Then we shall have a four set without recourse to neighbours when Mary Strachan arrives," said Beatrice.

"Mary Strachan! Is she coming?" cried Kavanagh.

"Yes; mamma asked her, and she is to arrive early next week."

"That will be jolly! We only want Tom too."

"I don't despair of seeing him before the autumn," said Harry. "I heard from him yesterday, and he thought he should come home when the Guards did. And if we kiss and make it up with the various folks we are at loggerheads with, I don't think there will be much more fighting for you military parties to do."

"Who do you mean?" asked Kavanagh. "I am not a military person. I have got my discharge, sir, and might pass the commander-in-chief himself without saluting. Not that I would though, God bless him."

"Is it not time that you had your jelly and glass of port wine?" observed Mrs Forsyth.

"Not quite," said Harry; "Fatima would not let him miss it by a minute. I believe she sits watching the clock, now she has learned what the figures mean, and why the hands go round."

"That is right; speak up for your slave," said Beatrice. "Any imputation upon her punctuality might depreciate her market value."

"I would not sell her for her weight in gold, and that must be something towards settling the National Debt," said Harry. "She nursed me back into life, I know."

"I can never repay her," murmured Mrs Forsyth.

At that moment the object of conversation appeared with a tray in her hand, and a broad smile on her honest black face. She was robed in white, with a red shawl and a yellow handkerchief round her head. They had tried to put her into a print gown and a mob cap, but she looked so queer and was so uncomfortable that they let her choose her own costume. Nursing was certainly her strong point, and she tended Kavanagh as carefully as if he had been a baby. Only she always thought it cold, and wanted to smother him with wraps.

It was no use resisting, so he had to put them away quietly when her back was turned.

"I shall have apoplexy if I am convalescent long," said Kavanagh, swallowing the last spoonful of his jelly. "I am eating and drinking good things the whole day long."

"But think of the privations you have to make up for," said Mrs Forsyth.

"Oh, mother, what a dear you are!" cried Harry. "Now I know why we have asparagus every day for dinner! Apropos of dinner, who do you think is coming to feed with us this evening, Kavanagh?"

"Invalids are excused guessing," said Kavanagh.

"Your old militia captain, Royce. He has got his majority now, by-the- by, and he is set upon having you back into the regiment."

Royce was punctual; and I propose to you a novelty in story endings. Let the curtain fall upon our friends as they are going in to dinner.

THE END.