CHAPTER L.

THE START FOR KHARTOUM.

'Elliot, can this be Jack Elliot?' exclaimed Dick Mostyn as he screwed an eyeglass into his left eye. 'By Jove, he looks as if he had a bad toothache! What's up, Jack—lost your heart to some fair Cairene on the Shoubrah road—eh?'

'Jack Elliot it is!' said Roland, as the officer in question, after 'handing over' his detachment, made his way to the quarters of the South Staffordshire, 'you are just in time to go up the river with us. We are on the eve of starting for Khartoum.'

'At last!'

'Yes, at last,' continued Roland, as they grasped each other's hands, and the latter, when looking intently into his brother-in-law's face, detected a grave, grim, keen-eyed, harassed, and even haggard expression, which was all unlike the jovial, free, and open one he was wont to see there. 'Why, Jack,' said he, 'what the devil is up? Are you ill with fever, or what? Did you leave all well at home?' he added as he drew him aside.

'Well—yes—I suppose; but ill or well, thereby hangs a tale—a devil of a tale; but ere I can tell it, give me something to drink, old fellow—my water-bottle is empty—flask ditto, and then I shall relate that which you would rather not hear.'

Jack unbuckled and flung his sword aside, while Roland hastily and impatiently supplied his wants, and then heard his brief, rapid, and startling story, winding up with the disappearance of Maude from the villa, and the incoherent and mysterious letter of farewell she left for him.

'After this—the deluge!' exclaimed Roland in the direst perplexity.

'God and my own heart only know what it cost me to start for the seat of war, leaving Maude, as I did, untraced, unfollowed, and undiscovered; but I had neither time nor an address to follow up,' sighed Elliot; 'and God only knows, too, how all this has cut her as it must have cut her—my poor darling—to the soul!'

The meeting of Roland and Jack Elliot was one of perplexity, gloom, and genuine distress. Far away from the land where they could be of help or use in unravelling the mystery, or succouring Maude, whom they deemed then a houseless fugitive, they felt themselves miserably powerless, hopeless, and exasperated; but curiously, perhaps, they never thought of suspecting the real author of the mischief, and were utterly at a loss to conceive how such a complication and accusation came about in any way.

Neither Jack nor Roland could know or conceive that she was safe under her uncle's wing at Merlwood. Thus they had to endure the anxiety of supposing her, with all her beauty, refinement, and delicacy, to be adrift in some homeless, aimless, and despairing way in London—haunted by anger and terror of an injury and irreparable wrong. The contemplation of this state of affairs filled the minds of both with incessant torture—a torture for which there was no relief, and would be none, either by letter or telegraph, for a long time, if ever, to them, as inexorably—in two days now—the regiment would be again on the Nile.

'Reason how we may,' was the ever-recurring and gloomy thought of Roland now, 'it has been said that Fate does certainly pursue some families to their ruin and extinction, and such is our probable end—the Lindsays of Earlshaugh!'

And so, apart from their brother officers, these two conversed and talked of the mysterious episode of the woman and her claims again and again, viewing it in every imaginable way, till they almost grew weary of it, in the hopelessness of elucidating it while in the Soudan; and as for poor Malcolm Skene and his fate, that was supposed to be a thing of the past, and they ceased to surmise about it.

At 2 p.m. on the 28th of December the start for Khartoum began!

It was made by the South Staffordshire, under the gallant Eyre, with exactly 19 officers and 527 men of the Regiment, and 2 officers and 20 men of the Royal Engineers in 50 boats, having the Staffordshire Knot painted on their bows, the badge of the old '38th.'

The sight was a fine and impressive one; the band was playing merrily in the leading boat, as usual, Scottish and Irish airs, as England, apparently, has none for any martial purpose. Thus it is that Scottish and Irish quicksteps are now ordered by the Horse Guards for nearly all the English regiments, with Highland reels for the Cavalry, and one other air in the 'Queen's Regulations,' with which we bid farewell to the old colours, is 'Auld Lang Syne.'

Steadily the whole battalion moved up stream, cheering joyously—the first away for Khartoum—exhibiting a regularity and power of stroke as they feathered their oars, and showing how much recent practice had done to convert them into able boatmen, and soon the camp was left behind, and the boats had the bare desert on both sides of the stream; but on and on they went, stemming the current of the famous Nile, famous even in the remotest ages, when the Egyptians worshipped the cow, the cat, the ibis, and the crocodile, and when King Amenchat, sixth of the Twelfth Dynasty, cut his huge river-like canal to join Lake M[oe]ris, 250 miles lower down.

On the 29th the Staffordshire boats were off the island of Massawi, where the atmosphere was grilling, being 120 degrees in the shade; but the soldiers were in the highest spirits, their regiment being the leading one of the whole army.

One scorching day followed another, yet on and on they toiled unwearyingly, passing Merawi and Abu Dom amid date-trees and rank, gigantic tropical vegetation, till the New Year's Day of 1885 found them nearing the foot of a cataract, after passing which the River Column was to form for its final advance on Khartoum. Already the uniforms were more than ever ragged, and scarcely a man had boots to his feet.

Roland and Elliot had command of different boats, so they could commune no more, even when they moored for the night by the river's bank, when the crimson sun had set in ruddy splendour beyond the gray hills of the Bayuda Desert, and the dingy yellow of the Nile was touched by the afterglow, in which its waves rippled in purple and silver sheen, while the dark, feathery palms and fronds swayed slowly to and fro in the friendly breeze, and the great pelicans were seen to wade amid the slime and ooze where the hideous crocodiles were dozing.

In some places the boats were rowed between islets which displayed a wondrous tropical wealth of dhurra, sugar-canes, and cotton-trees, with palms innumerable.

Officers and men—even chaplains—worked hard at the oars in their anxiety to get on. For days some never had the oar out of their hands; on others they were hauling the boats over the rapids and up cataracts, where at times they stuck in rocks and sandbanks, and had to be unloaded and lifted bodily off. At times the pulling was awful, and the hot sun scorched the back like fire, while the boats seemed to stand still in places where the main stream forced itself between masses of rock in a downward torrent, forming ugly whirlpools, about which the only certainty was, that whoever fell into them was drowned.

'Pull for your lives,' was then the cry; 'give way, men—give way with a will! Pull, or you'll be down the rapids.'

Then might be seen the men with their helmets off, bare-headed, and braving sunstroke under that merciless sunshine; steaming with perspiration—their teeth set hard—their hearts panting with the awful and, at times, apparently hopeless exertion of pulling against that mighty barrier of downward rolling water against which they seemed to make no head; yet ever and anon the cry went up:

'Pull, my lads, cheerily—we'll shake hands with old Gordon yet!'

And so they toiled on—now up to their knees in mud, now up to their chins in water, in rags and tatters, their blistered and festered hands swathed in dirty linen bandages, officers and men alike; often hungry, ever thirsty and weary, yet strong in heart and high in impulse, as our soldiers ever are when face to face with difficulty or death.

Then a little breeze might catch the sails, carry the boats ahead, and then a cheer of satisfaction would make the welkin ring.

Incredible was the amount of skill, care, and toil requisite for getting the boats of the flotilla up the Nile, especially at these places where with terrible force the rapids came in one sheet of foam, with a ceaseless roar between narrow walls of black rock at a visible incline, while at times the yells of thousands of wondering natives on the banks lent a strange and thrilling interest to the scene.

'At low Nile,' says a writer, 'these rapids are wild and desolate archipelagos, usually at least one or two miles in length, while the river bank on either side presents a series of broken, precipitous, and often inaccessible cliffs and rugged spurs. Their sombre and gloomy appearance is heightened by the colour of the rock, which, between high and low water-mark, is usually of a jet hue, and in many places so polished by the long action of the water, that it has the appearance of being carefully black-leaded. One or two big-winged, dusky birds may suddenly flap across, with a harsh, uncanny cry, or some small boy, whose tailor's bills must trouble him little, looks up from his fish-trap and shrieks for backsheesh; but beyond these, and the ceaseless rush of the water, sound or sight there is none.'

Many of these islets are submerged at high Nile, creating a number of cross currents which vary with the depth of the water, and render navigation difficult to all, and impossible to those who are unacquainted with each special locality; thus the troops of the relieving column had before them such a task as even Britons scarcely ever encountered before; but the Canadians, under Colonel Kennedy, of the Ontario Militia; the Indians, under the great chief White Eagle, and the soldiers, all worked splendidly together.

The 3rd of January saw the Staffordshire reach the Bivouac of Handab, in a wild and rocky spot, and in a position of peril between two great bodies of the enemy; but cheerily the soldiers joined in the queer chorus of a doggerel Canadian boat song adapted to the occasion by the Indians, who, whilom, had made the poplar groves of the Red River and Lake Winnipeg echo to it—

'Pulley up the boat, boys, rolley up the sleeve,
Khartoum am a long way to trabbel!
Pulley up the boat, boys, rolley up the sleeve,
Khartoum am a long way to trabbel, I believe!'

CHAPTER LI.

THE MARCH IN THE DESERT.

We have stated that Roland and his comrades were left stationed at a point where they were menaced by two forces of the enemy.

'These were,' says Colonel Eyre, of the Staffordshire, in his 'Diary,' 'the tribes whose people murdered poor Colonel Stewart. They are entrenched twenty-three miles in front of us up the river, and sent word that they were to fight. They have a large force on the Berber Road, forty miles on our flank; they were here two days ago, and took all the camels in the district. We are encamped on a wild desert, with ridges of rocky hills about two miles inland. We have pitched our tents.'

There we shall leave them for a time, and look back to Korti, where some boats of troops arrived from Hannek, twenty-three miles lower down the Nile, and in one of these, tugging manfully at an oar, came the rescued Malcolm Skene!

His disappearance many weeks before—nearly three months now—was well known to the troops; hence—though in that fierce warfare, a human life, more or less lost or saved, mattered little—his sudden appearance in camp, when he reported himself at the headquarter tent, did make a little stir for a time; and thus he was the hero of the hour; but great and forward movements were in progress now, and there was not much time to waste on anyone or anything else.

Though he had missed his corps, the Staffordshire, by about twenty-four hours, it was with a source of intense satisfaction that he found himself among his own countrymen again—once more with the troops and ready for active service of any kind.

One thought was fully prominent in his mind, never again would he be taken alive by the Soudanese.

A horse, harness, and arms, belonging to some of the killed or drowned, were speedily provided for him, and, by order of the General commanding, he was attached to the personal staff—pro tem.—of Sir Herbert Stewart, as his great knowledge of the country and of Arabic might prove of good service.

Considering the treachery of Hassan Abdullah, his long detention in the zereba of the Sheikh Moussa, and what his too probable end would have been after the deportation of Zebehr Pasha, with the recent close and deadly struggle he had for life in the grasp of Girolamo, and how nearly he escaped recapture and slaughter, Malcolm Skene had now a personal and somewhat rancorous animosity to the Soudanese.

Now that he had not perished in the desert, in the river, by Arab hands, or in any fashion as his troublesome presentiment had led him to expect when he left Cairo guided by that rascal Hassan on his lonely mission to Dayr-el-Syrian, he felt a curious sense of mortification, compunction, almost of regret, concerning the very tender and loving letter of farewell he had written to Hester Maule; and began to think it would be somewhat remarkable and awkward if—after all—he should again meet her face to face in society.

Then again, as often before, he seemed to see in fancy the conservatory at Earlshaugh, with its long and faintly lit vistas of flowers, rare exotics, with feathery acacias and orange trees and azaleas overhead; the gleam of the moonshine on the adjacent lakelet; the tall slender figure and soft dark eyes of Hester; and to his vivid imagination her words and his own came back to him, with the nervous expression of her sad and parted lips as she forbade him ever to hope, and yet gave him no reason why!

How long, long ago, it seemed since then! Yet he often fancied himself saying to her:

'Is the answer you gave me then still the same, dear Hester?'

Well—well—that was over and done with, as yet, and ere dawn came in on the 29th of December he was roused by the bugles sounding 'the assembly' for the advance.

Lord Wolseley's orders were now that General Earle, with an Infantry Brigade (including the Black Watch and Staffordshire), was to punish the Monassir tribe for the murder of Colonel Donald Stewart; while the Mounted Infantry and Guards Camel Corps, under Sir Herbert Stewart, were to advance on a march of exploration to Gakdul, a distance of ninety miles, with a convoy of camels laden with stores—a route between the deserts of Bayuda and Ababdeh.

A little after 3 a.m. on the 29th of December, the cavalry scouts, under Major Kitchener, with some Arab guides, moved off, and then Lord Wolseley gave his orders for the column to get into motion, and strike straight off across the pebble-strewn desert, towards the distant horizon, which was indicated only by a dark, opaque, and undulating line, against which a mimosa tuft stood up, and above which the rays of the yet unrisen sun were faintly crimsoning the then hazy sky, which otherwise as yet was totally dark.

To Sir Herbert Stewart the final orders were brought by Malcolm Skene, his new aide-de-camp.

'You are to advance, sir, in column of companies, with an interval of thirty paces between each, the Guards Camel Corps and Engineers in front, the convoy and baggage next, then the Artillery and Mounted Infantry, the Hussars to form the advance and rear guards.'

Malcolm saluted, reined back his horse, and betook him to the inevitable cigarette, while the camels ceased to grunt, and stalked off to the posts assigned them, and the column began to move, so as to be in readiness to form a hollow square at a moment's notice.

To Malcolm Skene, even to him who had recently seen so much, it was indeed a strange sight to watch the departing camels, with their long, slender necks stretched out like those of ostriches, and their legs, four thousand pairs in number, gliding along in military order, silently, softly, noiselessly, like a mighty column of phantoms, beast and rider, until the light, rising dust of the desert blended all, soldiers, camels, convoy, artillery, and baggage, into one gray, uniform mass, which ere long seemed to fade out, to pass away from the eyes of those who remained behind in the camp.

In case of an attack the Guards were to form square, echeloned on the left front of the column; the Mounted Infantry were to do the same on the right rear; but the column was so great in length that it was feared their fire would scarcely protect the entire line unless the usually swift enemy were seen approaching in time to get the baggage and convoy closed up; for, broad though the front of this strange column, it was fully a mile long, and would have proved very unwieldy to handle in case of a sudden onslaught. Thus on the march it frequently halted, dismounted, and, for practice, prepared to meet the enemy, and was so formed that if the latter got among the camels they would be exposed to an enfilading fire from two faces each way.

After a halt nine miles distant from Korti, and as many to the left of the Wady Makattem, the march was resumed under a peculiarly brilliant moonlight—one so bright that few present had ever seen anything like it before.

Not a cloud was visible in the far expanse of the firmament; there were millions upon millions of stars sparkling, but their brightness paled almost out in the brilliance of the moon. There were no leaves to shine in the dew, but showers of diamonds seemed to gem the yellow pebbles of the desert; and had birds been there, they might have sung as if a new day had dawned; yet how all unlike the warm glow of an Egyptian day was the icy splendour of the moonlight that mingled in one quarter with the coming redness of the east.

Every sword-blade, every rifle-barrel, every buckle and stirrup-iron, glinted out in light, while the figures of every camel and horse, soldier, and artillery-wheel were clearly defined as at noonday; and no sound broke the stillness save the shrill voices of the Somali camel-drivers.

It was soon after this that Major Barrow, when scouting with some Hussars, came upon a solitary messenger, bearer of a tiny scrap of paper, no larger than a postage stamp—one of the last missives from Gordon, dated 14th December, he being then shut up in Khartoum.

The moonlight faded; the red dawn came in, and still the march of the column went on; in front a dreary, sandy, and waterless desert; behind, the narrow streak of green that indicated the course of the Nile; and now our officers began to say to each other that 'if the camel corps alone was from the first deemed sufficient to relieve Khartoum, then why, at such enormous expense, exertion, and toil, were 3,000 infantry brought blundering up the Nile? And anon, if they were not sufficient, surely there was infinite danger in exposing the corps, unsupported, to the contingency of an overwhelming attack by the united forces of the Mahdi.'

It was found that there were wells, however, at Hamboka, El Howeiyat, and elsewhere, far apart, and that so far as water was concerned the practicability of the desert route to Metemneh was proved by the march to Gakdul; after reaching which Sir Herbert Stewart retraced his steps to Korti; where two days afterwards, about noon, a cloud of dust seen rising in the distance, almost to the welkin, announced the return of his column, looming large and darkly out of the mirage of the desert, in forms that were strange, distorted, and gigantic, after leaving twenty broken-down camels to die, abandoned in the awful waste.

Just as Stewart came, the sound of Scottish pipes on the Nile announced the arrival of the Black Watch in their boats off Korti. All round the world have our bagpipes sounded, but never before so far into the heart of the Dark Continent.

On Thursday, the 8th of January, the second advance through the desert began, and the natives looked upon the troops as doomed men. Three armies, larger and better equipped, had departed on the same errand to 'smash up' the Mahdi, but had been cut off nearly to a man, and their unburied skeletons were strewn all over the country.

All the officers in Sir Herbert Stewart's column were strangers to Malcolm Skene, but such is the influence of service together, camaraderie and companionship in danger and suffering, that even in these days of general muddle and 'scratch' formations, he felt already quite like an old friend with the staff and many others.

The pebble-strewn desert was glistening in the moonlight, when the column en route for Khartoum, viâ Gubat and Metemneh, marched off at two in the morning, and ever and anon the bugle rang out on the ambient air, sounding 'halt,' that the stragglers in the rear might close up, and then the long array continued to glide like a phantom army, or a mass of moving shadows, across the waste.

Three hours afterwards, there stole upon one quarter of the horizon a lurid gleam—the herald of the coming day; then the bugles struck up a Scottish quick-step—the silence was broken, and the men began to talk cheerily, and 'chaff' each other, though already enduring that parched sensation in the mouth, peculiar to all who traverse the deserts that border on the Nile—a parched feeling for which liquor, curious to say, is almost useless, and often increases the torture—and all, particularly the marching infantry, in defiance of orders, drank from their water-bottles surreptitiously, even when it was announced that seventy more miles had to be covered ere a proper supply could be obtained from wells.

Those at Hamboka, forty-seven miles from Korti, were found full of dry sand—destroyed by the horsemen of the Sheikh Moussa Abu Hagil, who was in that quarter; those at El Howieyat, eight miles further on, were in nearly the same condition, and already the soldiers were becoming maddened by thirst.

Day had passed, and again the weary march was resumed in the dark.

At the well of Abu Haifa, eighty miles from Korti, the scene that ensued was exciting and painful—even terrible. The orders were that the fighting men were to be first supplied; and, held back by the bayonet's point, the wretched camp-followers, Somali camel-drivers, and others frantically tore up the warm sand with their hands in the hope that a little water might collect therein, and when it did so, they stooped and lapped it up like thirsty cats or dogs. Others failed to achieve this, and with their mouths cracked, their entrails shrivelled, their flashing eyes wild and hollow, they rolled about with frenzy at their hearts, and blasphemy on their lips. There was no reasoning with them—they could no longer reason.

Even the resolute British soldier could scarcely be restrained by habitual discipline from throwing the latter aside, and joining in the throng that surged around the so-called well—a mere stony hole in the desert sand—while in the background were maddened horses, and even the ever-patient camels, plunging, struggling, unmanageable, and fighting desperately with their masters for a drop of that precious liquid.

In the struggle here Malcolm Skene, as an officer, got his water-bottle filled among the earliest, having ridden forward, and with a sigh that was somewhat of a prayer he was about to take a deep draught therefrom, when the wan face, the haggard eyes, and parched lips of a young soldier of the 2nd Sussex caught his eye. Too weak to struggle, perhaps too well-bred, if breeding could be remembered in that hour of madness, or so despairing as to be careless, he had made no effort to procure water, or if he did so, had failed.

Skene's heart smote him.

'Drink, my man,' said he, proffering his water-bottle, 'and then I shall.'

'Oh, may God bless you, sir,' murmured the poor infantry lad fervently, as he drank, and returned the bottle with a salute.

Gakdul—hemmed in by lofty and stupendous precipices of bare rock—was reached on the 12th January, when, amid cheers and rejoicings, a plentiful supply of water was obtained, after which preparations were made for the march to Metemneh, where it was known that thousands were gathering to bar our way to Khartoum. Yet Stewart's total strength was only 1,607 men of all ranks, encumbered by 304 camp followers, and 2,380 camels and horses. The halt of two days at Gakdul did wonders in restoring the energies of men and cattle.

There Malcolm Skene's knowledge of Arabic was frequently in requisition. As yet the leaders of this advanced column were utterly without any trustworthy intelligence as to the movements of the Mahdi's army, for bands of prowling robbers and the Bedouins of the Sheikh Moussa infested every route in front and rear, keeping carefully out of sight by day-time, but swooping down on the camping grounds by night in the hope of finding abandoned spoil—perhaps sick or wounded men to torture and slay.

Sir Herbert Stewart arrived on the 16th of January within a few miles of the now famous wells of Abu Klea, after a waterless march of forty-three miles from those of El Faar, and already even the poor camels had become so reduced in physique that as many as thirty dropped down to die in one day; but the troops reached a line of black sandstone ridges lying westward of Abu Klea, and a squadron of Hussars, whose horses were suffering most severely from want of water, cantered forward to inspect the country, and Malcolm Skene rode with them.

At mid-day they found the enemy in a valley, where long and reedy grass was waving in the hot breeze—a place studded by several camel-thorns and acacias. The Arab centre occupied a long and gentle slope, like the glacis of an earthwork.

Led by a Sheikh, about 200 mounted men advanced resolutely and in tolerable order, opening fire with their Remingtons on the Hussars.

In their leader, Malcolm, through his field-glass, recognised the Sheikh Moussa Abu Hagil, who alone of all his band wore a suit of that mail armour of the Middle Ages, which is thus described by Colonel Colborne, who says 'it was in the Soudan' he first saw it, to his amazement: 'Whether original or a copy of it, it was undoubtedly the dress of the Crusaders. The hauberk was fastened round the body by the belt, and formed a complete covering from head to foot. The long and double-edged sword was worn between the leg and saddle.'

Moussa wore a flat-topped helmet with a plume, and tippet of Darfour mail; his horse's head was cased in steel, and covered by a quilt thick enough to turn a spear; but, save their bodies, which were clad in Mahdi shirts, his followers were naked—with their dark, bronze-like legs and arms bare.

Under their fire the reconnoitring force of Hussars fell back, an operation viewed by Sir Herbert Stewart and his staff from the summit of a lofty hill composed entirely of black and shining rock, from whence he could see the whole country for miles, and from where he ordered a general advance.

By difficult defiles, and in serious distress owing to the want of water, the troops advanced in steady and splendid order, the line being led by the Brigade Major, David, Earl of Airlie, of the 10th Hussars—one of a grand old historic race—round whose Castle of Cortachy a spectre drummer is said to beat when fate is nigh—and he had brought the whole into the valley by half-past two o'clock; then Sir Herbert, having ascertained from Skene's report that the wells of Abu Klea were too far in rear of the Arab position to be accessible that night, resolved to fortify the ground he occupied, a ridge rising gently from the Wady, but broken before it reached the hills, while close in rear of it was a grassy hollow, wherein the baggage animals were picketed.

Hasty parapets of stones, gathered from the ground whereon the troops lay, were constructed along the front of the position, flanked by abattis of thorny mimosa, while the great hill of black rock referred to was occupied by a party of signallers, who built thereon a redoubt; while a mile in its rear, on the brow of a precipice, another fortlet was formed as a rallying point in case of a reverse.

With his staff and a few Hussars Sir Herbert now rode to the front, and saw, as the ruddy sun began to set and cast long shadows over the swelling uplands of the scenery, the enemy in their thousands taking possession of a lofty hill sixteen hundred paces distant on his right—a position from whence they could completely enfilade his lines. Thus ere darkness fell they secured the range, and from that time no one could reckon on twenty minutes' sound sleep.

Prior to that a couple of shells were thrown among them, exploding with brilliant glares and loud crashes, on which they retired a little or sank down, leaving two great white banners floating out against the starry sky-line.

All night long they 'potted' away with their Remingtons, keeping up a desultory, but most harassing, fire, their long range and trajectory placing every point in danger, and some of their bullets fell whizzing downwards through the air upon the sleepers.

Many men were wounded, and many camels, too, and all night long, while their rifle shots flashed redly out of the darkness, they maintained a horrible din on their one-headed war drums, making the hours hideous.

All through the dark and moonless night these savage sounds rose and swelled upon the dewy air, and formed a fitting accompaniment to the wail of their pestering bullets as they swept over the silent British bivouac.

CHAPTER LII.

THE PRESENTIMENT FULFILLED.

So passed the night.

On the morning of the 17th of January, early, and without blast of bugle or beat of drum, a frugal breakfast—the last meal that many were to have in this world—was served round, and had been barely partaken of, when the Arab skirmishers came swarming over the low hills on our right flank, and opened fire with their Remingtons at eleven hundred yards' range.

With a succession of dreadful crashes, our shrapnel shell exploded among them, tearing many to pieces and putting the rest to flight; and after more than one attempt to lure the enemy from their position had failed, at 7 a.m. Sir Herbert Stewart began his preparations to advance, and drive them from the wells of Abu Klea.

Meanwhile the army of the Mahdi had been continually appearing and disappearing in front, their many-coloured pennons streaming out on the passing breeze, their long sword-blades and spear-heads flashing brightly in the red rays of the uprising sun, while the thunder of their battle-drums and their savage wild cries loaded the morning air.

Five ranks deep, four thousand of them deployed in irregular lines along a hollow in our front, led by mounted sheikhs and dervishes, clad in richly-embroidered Mahdi camises, and posted at intervals of twenty-five yards apart—conspicuous among them Moussa Abu Hagil, in his Darfour shirt of mail.

They were posted on strong ground westward of the wells, which our soldiers, sorely athirst, were full of anxiety to reach; and as the camels were mostly to be left in the rear, they were knee-haltered, and their stores and saddles used to strengthen the parapets of the detached fortlets.

In the fighting square which now advanced were only one hundred camels for carrying litters, stores, water, and spare ammunition.

The Heavies on this eventful morning were led by Colonel Talbot; the Guards by Colonel Boscawen; the gallant Barrow led the Mounted Infantry, and Lord Beresford the slender Naval Brigade.

Men were being knocked over now on every hand, and among the first who fell was Lord St. Vincent, of the 17th Lancers, who received a wound that proved mortal. Under Barrow the Mounted Infantry went darting forward, and the Arab skirmishers fell back before them, vanishing into the long wavy grass from amid which the smoke of their rifles spirted up. Skene had the spike of his helmet carried away by one ball; his bridle hand sharply grazed by another, but he bound his handkerchief about the wound and rode on.

By this time nearly an hour had elapsed since the zereba and its fortlets had been left in the rear, and only two miles of ground had been covered, and all the while our troops had been under a fire from the sable warriors on the hill slopes.

'Halt!' was now sounded by the bugles, and the faces of the square were redressed and post was to be taken on a slope, which the enemy would have to ascend when attacking.

Their total strength was now estimated at 14,000 men!

Our dead men were left where they fell; but frequent were the halts for picking up the wounded. Yet steady as if on parade in a home barrack square, our little band advanced, over stony crests, through dry water-courses, like some hugh machine, compact and slow, firm and regular, amid the storm of bullets poured into it from the front, from the flanks, and eventually from the rear.

At first the enemy swarmed in dark masses all along our front, and for two or three miles on either flank groups of their horsemen, with floating garments and glittering spears, could be seen watching the advance of the hollow square from black peaks of splintered rock. 'There was no avenue of retreat now for us,' wrote one, 'and no one thought of such a thing. "Let us do or die!" (in the words of Bruce's war song) was the emotion of all; and Colonel Barrow, C.B., with his "handful" of Hussars, became engaged about the same time as the square.'

He maintained a carbine fire, while General Stewart, with his personal staff, including Major Wardrop, the Earl of Airlie, and Captains Skene and Rhodes, galloped from point to point, keeping all in readiness to repulse a sudden charge; but, with all their bravery, it was a trial for our Heavy Dragoons to march on foot and fight with infantry rifles and bayonets—weapons to which they were totally unaccustomed.

The keen, yet dreamy sense of imminent peril—the chances of sudden death, with the spasmodic tightness of the chest that emotion sometimes causes, had passed from Malcolm Skene now completely; he 'felt cool as a cucumber,' yet instinct with the fierce desire to close with, to grapple, and to spur among the enemy sabre à la main; and he forgot even the smarting of his wounded bridle hand as the troops moved onward.

A few minutes after ten o'clock, when the leading face of the square had won the crest of a gentle slope on the other side of a hollow, a column of the enemy, about 5,000 strong, was seen echeloned in two long lines on the left, or opposite that face which was formed by the mounted infantry and heavy cavalry, and looking as if they meant to come on now.

They were still marshalled, as stated, by sheikhs and dervishes on horseback, and, with all their banners rustling in the wind, the battle-drums thundering, and their shrill cries of 'Allah! Allah!' loading the air, they advanced quickly, brandishing their flashing spears and two-handed swords. Abu Saleh, Ameer of Metemneh, led the right; Moussa Abu Hagil led the centre; and Mahommed Khuz, Ameer of Berber, who had soon to retire wounded, led the left, and our skirmishers came racing towards the square.

Strange to say, our fire as yet seemed to have little effect upon the foe; very few were falling, and the untouched began to believe that the spells of Osman Digna and the promises of the Mahdi had rendered their bodies shot-proof; and when within three hundred yards of the square they began to rush over the undulating ground like a vast wave of black surf. Now the Gardner gun was brought into action; but when most required, and at a moment full of peril, the wretched Government ammunition failed to act—the cartridges stuck ere the third round was fired; the human waves of Arabs came rolling down upon the square, leaping and yelling over their dead and wounded, never reeling nor wavering under the close sheets of lead that tore through them now.

Like fiends let loose they came surging and swooping on, their burnished weapons flashing, and their black brawny forms standing boldly out in the glow of the sunshine, unchecked by the hailstorm of bullets, spearing the horsemen around the useless Gardner gun, and fighting hand to hand, Abu Saleh and the Sheikh Moussa leading them on, and then it was that the gallant Colonel Burnaby, of the Blues, fell like the hero he was.

The wild and high desire to do something that might win him a name, and make, perhaps, Hester Maule proud of him, welled up in the heart of Malcolm Skene, even at that terrible crisis, and he spurred his horse forward a few paces, just as Burnaby had done, to succour some of the skirmishers, who, borne back by the Arab charge, had failed to reach the protection of the square, which was formed in the grand old British fashion, shoulder to shoulder like a living wall.

By one trenchant, back-handed stroke of his sword, he nearly swept the head off the yelling Arab, thereby saving from the latter's spear a Foot Guardsman, who had stumbled ere he could reach the square; but now Skene was furiously charged by another, who bore the standard of Sheikh Moussa.

Grasping his spear by his bridle hand, he ran his sword fairly through the Arab, who fell backward in a heap over his horse's crupper, and then Skene tore from his dying grip the banner, which was of green silk—the holy colour—edged with red, and bore a verse of the Koran in gold (for it was a gift from the Mahdi), and, regaining the shelter of the square, threw his trophy at the foot of the General.

'This shall go to the Queen—in your name, Captain Skene!' said the latter.

'The Queen—no, sir—but to a girl in Scotland, I hope, whether I live or not!' replied Malcolm.

It was sent to the Queen at Windsor eventually, however, for Malcolm, now, when the square, recoiling before the dreadful rush, had receded about a hundred yards, and the Arabs were charging our men breast high, and the Heavies, instead of remaining steady as infantry would have done, true to their cavalry instincts were springing forward to close with the foe, once more dashed to the front in headlong fashion, and found himself beyond the face of the square, opposed to a tribe of Ghazis, who were brandishing their spears, hurling javelins, and hewing right and left with their two-handed swords—all swarthy negroes from Kordofan, and copper-coloured Arabs of the Bayuda Desert with long, straight, floating hair.

Heedless of death—nay, rather courting it as the path to paradise—with weapons levelled or uplifted, they came forward, with blood pouring from their bullet wounds in many instances, some staggering under these till they dropped and died within five paces of the square, while the others rushed on, and the fight became hand to hand, the bayonet meeting the Arab spear. On our side there was not much shouting as yet, only a brief cry, an oath, or a short exclamation of prayer or agony as a soldier fell down in his place, and all the valour of the Heavies became unavailing, when their formation was broken, when the foe mingled with them, and they were driven back upon the Naval Brigade, with its still useless Gardner gun, upon the right of the Sussex Regiment, which strove to close up the gap.

Then it was that Skene found himself opposed to Moussa Abu Hagil, whose horse had been shot under him, and who, half-blinded by his own blood streaming from a bullet-wound from which his Darfour helmet failed to save him, fought like a wild animal, slashing about with his double-edged sword, which broke in his hand, and then using his spear.

Dashing at Skene with a demoniac yell, he levelled the long blade of the weapon at his throat. Parrying the thrust by a circular sweep of his sword, Skene checked his horse and reined it backwards; but the length of Skeikh Moussa's spear, nearly ten feet, put it out of his power to return with proper interest the fury of the attack. Twice at least his sword touched the Arab, thus making him, if more wary, all the more eager and fierce, and there was a grim and defiant smile on Skene's face as he fenced with Moussa and parried his thrusts; but now he was attacked by others when scarcely his horse's length from the face of the square.

One wounded him in the right shoulder; Skene turned in his saddle and clove him down. At that moment a soldier—the young lad of the 2nd Sussex to whom he gave his water-bottle at the well of Abu Haifa—ran from the ranks and attacked another assailant of Skene, but perished under twenty spears, and ere the latter could deliver one blow again, he was dragged from his saddle, covered with wounds in the neck and face—ghastly wounds from which the blood was streaming—'each a death to nature,' and literally hewn to pieces.

So thus, eventually, was his strange presentiment fulfilled!

Meanwhile the Ghazis had forced their way so far into the square that one was actually slain in the act of firing the battery ammunition. Despite the great efforts of a gallant Captain Verner and others, 'the Heavies were being massacred; and after the fall of Burnaby, whom Sir William Cumming, of the Scots Guards, tried to save, Verner was beaten down, but his life (it is recorded) was saved by Major Carmichael, of the Irish Lancers, whose dead body fell across him, as well as those of three Ghazis.'

The Earl of Airlie and Lord Beresford, fighting sword in hand, were both wounded, and so furious was the inrush of the Arabs, that many of them reached the heart of the square, where they slew the maimed and dying in the litters, and rushed hither and thither, with shrill yells, streaming hair, and flashing eyes, until they were all shot down or bayoneted to death.

Fighting for life and vengeance, and half maddened to find that their cartridges jammed hard and fast after the third shot, our soldiers—in some instances placed back to back—fought on the summit of a mound surrounded by thousands upon thousands of dark-skinned spearmen and swordsmen, hurling their strength on what were originally the left and rear faces of the square, till, with all its defects, our fire became so deadly and withering, that they began to waver, recoil, and eventually fly, while the triumphant cheers of our men rent the welkin.

Away went the Arabs streaming in full flight towards Berber, Metemneh, and the road to Khartoum, followed by Barrow and his Hussars cutting them down like ripened grain, and followed, to the screaming, plunging, and crashing fire of the screw guns which now came into action and pursuit with shot and shell.

So the field and the walls of Abu Klea were won, but dearly, as we had 135 other ranks killed, and above 200 wounded, including camel drivers and other camp followers.

The former were buried by the men of the 19th Hussars. Earth to earth—dust to dust—ashes to ashes; three carbine volleys rang above them in farewell, and all was over; while the native slain were left in their thousands to the birds of the air.

The column reached the city of Abu Klea in the evening, and then, parched and choked with thirst after the heat and toil and fierce excitement of the past night and day, all enjoyed the supreme luxury of the cold water from the fifty springs or more that bubbled in the Wady. Round these, men, horses, and camels gathered to quench their thirst, that amounted to agony, by deep and repeated draughts, while fires were lighted and a meal prepared.

Next followed the battle of Gubat and the futile expedition of Sir Charles Wilson, both of which are somewhat apart from our story.

The death of Colonel Burnaby, of the Blues, created a profound sensation in London society, where he was a great favourite; but there were many more than he to sorrow for.

Skene's fall made a deep impression among the Staffordshire, as he was greatly beloved by the soldiers.

'Poor Malcolm—killed at last!' said Roland, when the tidings came up the river to the bivouac at Hamdab. He should never see his brown, dark eyes again; feel the firm clasp of his friendly hand, or hear his cheery voice say—'Well, Roland—old fellow!'

'But it may be my turn next,' thought he.

'Poor Malcolm!' said Jack Elliot; 'I have known him nurse the sick, bury the dead, sit for hours playing with a soldier's ailing child, and once he swam a mile and more to save a poor dog from drowning.

And as he spoke, sometimes a tearless sob shook Elliot's sturdy frame, and Roland knew that with his friend Malcolm

'All was ended now—the hope, the fear, and the sorrow;
All the aching of the heart, the restless, unsatisfied longing;
All the dull, deep pain and constant anguish of patience—
His love and his life had ended together!'

CHAPTER LIII

A HOMEWARD GLANCE.

The action of one human being on another, by subtle means, it has been said, is as effective as the action of light on the air: that under the influence of Hawkey Sharpe and certain new circumstances, Annot Drummond had visibly deteriorated already.

Her high-flown ideas and undoubtedly better breeding had caused her to experience many a shock when in the daily and hourly society of her husband, with all his vulgar and horsey ways, and he was certainly far below that young lady's high-pitched expectations and her love of externals.

Her life at Earlshaugh had at first been getting quite like a story, she thought, and a perplexingly interesting story, too, with the high game she had to play for—a game in manoeuvres worthy of Machiavelli himself.

Annot, we know, was not tall; but her slight figure was prettily rounded. She carried herself well, though too quick and impulsive in her movements for real dignity, and as Maude had said, she never could conceive her at the head of a household, or taking a place in society. Now, as the wife of 'a cad' like Hawkey Sharpe, the latter was not to be thought of.

Her pretty ways and glittering golden hair, which had misled better men than the wretched Sharpe, were palling even upon him, now; and her studied artlessness had given place to a bearing born of vanity and her own success and ambition, the sequel of which she was yet to learn, but withal she was not yet lady of Earlshaugh. But, as a writer says of a similar character, 'a self-love, that demon who besets alike the learned philosopher with his own pet theories; the statesman with his pet political hobbies; the man of wealth with his own aggrandisement; and the man of toil with his own pet prejudices—that insidious demon had entire hold now of this silly little girl's heart, and closed it to anything higher.'

Married now, and safe in position as she thought herself, Annot was no longer the coaxing and cooing little creature she had been to Hawkey Sharpe; and rough and selfish though he was, a flash of her eyes, or a curl of her lip cowed him at times. She treated him as one for whom she was bound to entertain a certain amount of marital affection, but no respect whatever, and when she contrasted him with Roland Lindsay and other men she had known, even poor, weak Bob Hoyle, her manner became one of contempt and, occasionally, disgust.

But she had preferred the couleur d'or to the couleur de rose in matrimony, and had now, as Hawkey said, 'to ride the ford as she found it.'

'Men like Roland,' said Annot to Mrs. Lindsay when discussing her whilom lover, 'especially military men, see a good deal of life, and experience teaches them how passing a love affair may be.'

'You mean——' began Mrs. Lindsay, scarcely knowing what to say.

'I mean that he must have played with fire pretty often,' said Annot, laughing, but not pleasantly, 'and will forget me as he must have forgotten others. I suppose our likes and dislikes in this world are based upon the point that somebody likes or dislikes ourselves.'

Hawkey Sharpe's debts and demands since his marriage had exhausted the patience if not quite the finances of his sister: and now the bill, erewhile referred to—the racing debt—was falling inexorably due, and how to meet it, or be stigmatised as a 'welsher' on every course in the country, became a source of some anxiety to that gentleman.

To meet his other requirements, all the fine timber in the King's Wood was gone—a clean sweep had been made from King James's Thorn to the Joug Tree, that bears an iron collar, in which for centuries the offenders on the domains of Earlshaugh had suffered durance, and the once finely foliaged hill now looked bare and strange; and for angry remarks thereat, Willie Wardlaw, the gardener, and Gavin Fowler, the head gamekeeper, aged dependants on the house of Earlshaugh, as their fathers had been before them, had been summarily dismissed by Mr. Hawkey Sharpe.

A well-known firm of shipbuilders on the Clyde had offered for the wood, and to the former the most attractive part of the transaction, in addition to the good price, was the fact that the money was paid down at once but it was far from satisfying the wants of Mr. Hawkey Sharpe.

'You know I disliked having that timber sold—that I hated the mere thought of having it cut!' said Deborah to him reproachfully, as she looked from the window into the sunshine.

'Why?' he asked sulkily; 'what the devil was the use of it?'

'It was the favourite feature in the landscape——'

'Of whom?'

'My dead husband.'

'Bosh!' exclaimed Hawkey, who thought this was (what, to do her justice, it was not) 'twaddle.'

They were together in his sanctum, or 'den,' which passed occasionally as his office; though the table, like the mantelpiece, was strewed with pipes, their ashes were everywhere, and the air was generally redolent of somewhat coarse tobacco smoke.

Having a favour to ask, he had, in his own fashion, been screwing his courage to the sticking-point.

'You have been imbibing—drinking again?' said his pale sister, eyeing him contemptuously with her cold, glittering stare.

'"I take a little wine for my stomach's sake and other infirmities," as we find in 1st Timothy,' said he with a twinkle in his shifty eyes.

'The devil can quote Scripture, so well may you.'

'That is severe, Deb,' said he, filling his pipe.

'Come to the point.'

'Well, Deb, dear, would it be convenient to you to—to lend me a couple of thousand pounds for a few weeks? I have hinted of this from time to time.'

'Two thousand pounds! Not only inconvenient, but impossible,' said she, twisting her rings about in nervous anger.

'Why, Deb?'

'I have not even a fifty-pound note in the house.'

'But plenty lying idle at your banker's.'

'Not the sum you seek to borrow just now. Borrow! Why not be candid, and ask for it out and out? Two thousand——'

'I must have the money, I tell you,' he said, with sudden temper, 'or—or——'

'What?'

'Be disgraced—that is all,' he replied, sullenly lighting his huge briar-root.

'Well, you must find it without my aid,' said she, coldly and sullenly too.

'Could you not raise it on some of your useless jewels? Come, now, dear old Deb, don't be too hard upon a fellow.'

Anger made her pale cheek suffuse at this cool suggestion, and she became very much agitated.

'Now, don't cut up this way. It is your heart again, of course; but keep quiet, and let nothing trouble you,' said he, puffing vigorously. 'You have a lot of the Lindsay jewels that are too old-fashioned for even you to wear.'

'But not to bequeath.'

'To Annot?' said he, brightening a little.

'I am sick of you and your Annot,' exclaimed Mrs. Lindsay, now all aflame with anger, and trembling violently.

'Sorry to hear it,' said he, somewhat mockingly. 'We have not yet quite got over our spooning.'

'Don't use that horrid, vulgar phrase, Hawkey.'

'Vulgar! How?'

'One no doubt derived from the gipsies, when two used one horn spoon. Annot, with all her apparent amiable imbecility, is a remarkably acute young woman.'

'She is—and does credit to my taste, Deb.'

'One whom it is impossible to dislike, I admit.'

'Of course.'

'And also quite impossible to love.'

'Oh, come now, poor Annot!' said Hawkey, with a kind of mock deprecation; and then to gain favour he said, 'I do wish, dear Deb, that you would see the doctor again—about yourself.'

'I have seen him; the old story, he can do nothing but order me to avoid all agitation, yet you have not given me much chance of that lately.'

'But just once again, Deb—about this money——'

'Another word on the subject and we part for ever!' she exclaimed, and giving him a glance—stony as the stare of Medusa—one such as he had never before seen in her small, keen, and steely-gray eyes, she flung away and left him.

He gnashed his teeth, smashed his pipe on the floor, then lit a huge regalia to soothe his susceptibilities, and thought about how the money was to be raised. He knew his sister had thousands idle in the bank, and have it he should at all hazards!

He had meant, too, if successful, and he found her pliable, to have spoken to her again about making her will; but certainly the present did not seem a favourable occasion to do so.

'Deb will be getting her palpitation of the heart, nervous attacks, low spirits, and the devil only knows all what more, on the head of this!' he muttered with a malediction.

Hawkey had watched her retire through the deep old doorway (under the lintel of which tall Cardinal Beatoun had whilom stooped his head) and disappear along the stately corridor beyond. Then he dropped into an easy-chair—stirred the fire restlessly and impatiently, and drained his glass, only to refill it—his face the while fraught with rage and mischief.

He drew a letter or two from a drawer—they were from his sister—and he proceeded to study her signature with much artistic acumen and curiosity.

'Needs must when the devil drives!' said he, grinding his teeth and biting his spiky nails; 'I have done it—and that she'll know in time!'

Done what?

That the reader will know in time too.

CHAPTER LIV.

THE LONG-SUSPENDED SWORD.

Sorrow is said to make people sometimes, to a certain extent, selfish; thus sorrow in her own little secluded home was, ere long, to render Hester, for a space at least, less thoughtful of the grief which affected her cousin Maude.

Hester was somewhat changed, and knew within herself that it was so.

She found that her daily thoughts ran more anxiously and tenderly upon her father, and about his fast-failing health, than on any other subject now.

She lost even a naturally feminine interest in her own beauty. Who was there to care for it? she thought.

So on Sundays she sat in her pew, in the kirk on the wooded hill, and there listened to the preacher's voice blending with the rustle of the trees and the cawing of the rooks in the ruined fane close by; but with an emotion in her heart never known before—that of feeling that ere long she would have a greater need of some one to lean on—of something to cling to in the coming loneliness that her heart foreboded to be near now.

At last there came a day she was never to forget—a day that told her desolation was at hand.

Seated in his Singapore chair at breakfast one morning, her father suddenly grew deadly pale; a spasm convulsed his features; his coffee-cup fell from his nerveless hand; and he gazed at her with all the terror and anguish in his eyes which he saw in her own.

'Papa—papa!' she exclaimed, and sprang to his side. He gazed at her wildly, vacantly, and muttered something about 'the Jhansi bullet.' Then she heard him distinctly articulate her name.

'Hester—my own darling—you here?' he said, with an effort; 'how sweet you look in that white robe. I always loved you in it, dear.'

'My dress is rose-coloured—a morning wrapper, papa,' said Hester, as the little hope that gathered in her heart passed away.

'So white—so pure—just like your marriage-dress, Hester! But you wore it the first day I saw you, long ago—long ago—at Earlshaugh, when you stood in the Red Drawing-room—and gave me a bouquet of violets from your breast. My own Hester!'

'Oh, papa—papa!' moaned the poor girl in dire distress, for she knew he spoke not of her but of her mother, who had reposed for years under the trees in the old kirkyard on the hill; and a choking sob of dismay escaped her.

It was a stroke of paralysis that had fallen upon the Indian veteran, and he was borne to his bed, which he never left alive.

Hour after hour did Maude hang over him, listening to his fevered breathing, and futile moanings, which no medical skill could repress or soothe; and the long day, and the terrible night—every minute seemed an age—passed on, and still the pallid girl watched there in the hopeless agony of looking for death and not for life.

That long night—one of the earliest of winter—was at last on its way towards morning.

All was still in the glen of the Esk save the murmur of the mountain stream and the rustle of the leaves in the shrubberies without, and there was a strange loneliness, a solemnity, in Hester's mind as she thought of Merlwood in its solitariness, with death and life, time and eternity, so nigh each other under its roof; and the ceaseless ticking of an antique clock in the hall fell like strokes of thunder on her brain, till she stopped it, lest the sound might disturb the invalid.

And in that time of supreme anxiety and sorrow the lonely girl thought of her only kinsman, Roland Lindsay—the friend of her childhood and early girlhood—the merry, handsome, dark-haired fellow, who taught her to ride and row and fish, and whom she loved still with a soft yet passionate affection, that was strong as in the old days, for all that had come and gone between them.

Would he ever return—return to her and be as he had been before—before Annot Drummond came?

Another and a fatal stroke came speedily and mercifully; the long-suspended sword had fallen at last, and the old soldier was summoned to his last home!

A few days after saw Hester prostrate in her own bed and in the hands of the doctors, her rich dark-brown hair shorn short from her throbbing temples, feverish and faint, with dim eyes and pallid lips that murmured unconsciously of past times, of the distant and the dead—of her parents, of camps and cantonments far away; of little brothers and sisters who were in heaven; of green meadows, of garden flowers and summer evenings, when she and Roland had rambled together; and then of Egypt and the war in the deserts by the Nile.

After a time, when the early days of February came, when the mellow-voiced merle and the speckle-breasted mavis were heard in the woods by the Esk; when the silver-edged gowans starred the grassy banks, and the newly-dug earth gave forth a refreshing odour, and everywhere there were pleasant and hopeful signs that the dreary reign of winter was nearly over, Hester became conscious of her surroundings, but at first only partially so.

'Maude,' said she, in a weak voice to a watcher, 'dear Maude—are you there?'

'Yes,' replied the cousin, drawing the sick girl's head upon her bosom. 'Oh, Hester—my poor darling, how ill you have been!'

'Ill—I ill? I thought it was papa,' she said, with dilated eyes. 'Is he well now?'

'Yes,' replied Maude, in a choking voice, 'well—very well; but drink this, dearest.'

'Where is papa—can I see him? Will you or the doctor take me to him?'

'He is not here,' began the perplexed Maude.

'Not here; where then?'

'You must wait, Hester, till you are well and strong—well and strong; you must not speak or think—but eat.'

Then a feeble smile that made Maude's tender heart ache stole over Hester's pale face.

'Where is papa?' the latter exclaimed suddenly, with a shrill ring of hysterics in her voice. 'Ah—I know—I remember now,' she added, with a smile, 'he is dead—dead!'

'Born again, rather say, my darling,' whispered poor Maude, choked with tears, as she nestled Hester's face in her neck.

'Dead—dead; and I am alone in the world!' moaned Hester, as a hot shower of tears relieved her, and she turned her face to the wall, while convulsive sobs shook her shoulders.

In time she was able to leave her bed—to feel herself well, if weak—deplorably weak, and knew that she had resolutely and inexorably to face the world of life.

A pile of letters occupied her, luckily, for a time—letters that were sad if soothing—all full of sympathy, tenderness, and sincere regret, profound esteem, and so forth, for the brave old man who was gone; even there was one from Annot, but none from Roland or Jack.

Where were they? Far away, alas! where postal arrangements were vague and most uncertain.

We have said that Hester had the world to face. Her father's pay and pension died with him, and suddenly the girl was all but penniless. Her father had been unable to put away any money for her. People thought he might and ought to have managed better; but so it was.

Sir Henry's Indian relics, his treasured household gods, such as the tulwar of the Amazonian Ranee of Jhansi, who fought and died as a trooper when Tantia Topee strove to save the lost cause, all of which had to Hester a halo of love and superstition of the heart about them, were brought to the auctioneer's hammer inexorably, and with the money realised therefrom she thought to look about for some such situation or employment as might become one in her unfortunate position.

As the relics went, her conscience smote her now, for the recollection of how often she had grown weary over the oft repeated Indian reminiscences of the poor old man, who lived in the past quite as much, if not more, than in the present. What would she not give to hear his voice once again! And she remembered now how fond he was of quoting the words of 'The Ancient Brahmin':

'Happy is he who endeth the business of his life before his death.... Avoid not death, for it is a weakness; fear it not, for thou understandest not what it is; all thou certainly knowest is, that it putteth an end to thy sorrows. Think not the longest life the happiest; that which is best employed doth the man most honour, and himself shall rejoice after death in the advantages of it.'

Like other girls who are imaginative and impressionable, she had built her châteaux en Espagne, innocent edifices enough, and romantic too, but now they had crumbled away, leaving not one stone upon another. Her future seemed fixed irrevocably; no idle dreams could be there, but a life that would, too probably, be blank and dreary even unto the end.

We cannot be in the world and grieve at all times; but yet one may feel a sorrow for ever.

'I shall go and earn my living, Maude—be a governess, or something,' she said, as her plans began to mature. 'It cannot be difficult to teach little children; though I always hated my own lessons, I know, even when helped by—Roland.'

'Nonsense, Hester!' exclaimed Maude; 'you shall live with me and—and Jack, if he ever returns, and all is well. You are too pretty to be a governess; no wise matron would have you.'

'Why?'

'Because all the grown sons and brothers would be falling in love with you. So you must stay with me.'

But Hester was resolute.

To the many letters of the former—letters agonising in tenor—addressed to Jack Elliot and to her brother Roland, no answer ever came, while weeks became months; for many difficulties just then attended the correspondence of the troops that were on the arduous expedition for the relief of Khartoum.

Thus, amid all the sorrows of Hester, how keen and great was the anxiety of Maude!

Jack, her husband—if he was her husband—was now face to face with the enemy—those terrible Soudanese—and might perish in the field, by drowning, or by fever, before she could ever have elucidated the mystery, the cloud, the horrible barrier that had come between them.

At times the emotions that shook the tender form of Maude were terrible, since the night of that woman's visit, when the iron seemed to enter her soul; and there descended upon her a darkness through which there had come no gleam of light.

The past and the future seemed all absorbed in the blank misery of the present, and as if her life was to be one career of abiding shame, emptiness, and misery, as a dishonoured wife—if wife she was at all!

Hawkey Sharpe had inflicted the revengeful blow; the woman, his degraded tool, had disappeared, and her story remained undisproved as yet. Jack, as we have said, might perish in Egypt, and the truth or the falsehood of that odious story would then be buried in his grave!

The pretty villa near the Grange Loan—the wood-shaded Loan that led of old to St. Giles's Grange—she now went near no more; it was torture to go back there—her home it never could be. Turn which way she would, her haggard eyes rested on some reminder of Jack's love or his presence there—their mutual household Lares: her piano, Jack's carefully selected gift; the music on the stand, chosen by him, and with his name and 'love' inscribed to her, just as she had left it; books, statuettes—pretty nothings, alas!

Her mind now pointed to no definite course; she felt like a rudderless ship drifting through dark and stormy waters before a cruel blast; in all, her being there was no distinct resolution as yet what to do or whither to turn.

Yet, calm as she seemed outwardly, there was in her tortured heart a passionate longing for peace, and peace meant, perhaps, death!

And all this undeserved agony was but the result of a most artful but pitiful and vulgar vengeance!

Whether born of thoughts caused by recent stirring news from the seat of war, we know not; but one night Hester woke from a dream of Roland—after a feverish and sleep-haunted doze—haunted as if by the spiritual presence of one who—bodily, at least—was far away.

Waking with a start, she heard a familiar and firm step upon the staircase, and then a door opened—the door of that room which Roland had always occupied when at Merlwood.

'Roland—Roland!' she cried in terror, and then roused Maude.

There was, of course, no response, but a sound seemed to pass into that identical room; she fancied she heard steps—his familiar steps moving about, but as if he trod softly—cautiously.

Terror seized her, and her heart seemed to die within her breast.

She sprang from bed, clasped Maude's hand, and went softly, mechanically to the room. It was empty, and the cold light of the waning moon flooded it from end to end, making it seem alike lone and ghostly.