with light from beneath rim of the world.

"If only they had let us go last year westward to the Nile," he said
with a sort of passion. "Before Khartum had fallen, before Berber had
surrendered. But they would not."

The magic of the sunset was not at all in Durrance's thoughts. The story
of the letter had struck upon a chord of reverence within him. He was
occupied with the history of that honest, great, impracticable soldier,
who, despised by officials and thwarted by intrigues, a man of few ties
and much loneliness, had gone unflaggingly about his work, knowing the
while that the moment his back was turned the work was in an instant all
undone.

Darkness came upon the troops, the camels quickened their pace, the
cicadas shrilled from every tuft of grass. The detachment moved down
toward the well of Disibil. Durrance lay long awake that night on his
camp bedstead spread out beneath the stars. He forgot the letter in the
mud wall. Southward the Southern Cross hung slanting in the sky, above
him glittered the curve of the Great Bear. In a week he would sail for
England; he lay awake, counting up the years since the packet had cast
off from Dover pier, and he found that the tale of them was good.
Kassassin, Tel-el-Kebir, the rush down the Red Sea, Tokar, Tamai,
Tamanieb--the crowded moments came vividly to his mind. He thrilled even
now at the recollection of the Hadendowas leaping and stabbing through
the breach of McNeil's zareba six miles from Suakin; he recalled the
obdurate defence of the Berkshires, the steadiness of the Marines, the
rallying of the broken troops. The years had been good years, years of
plenty, years which had advanced him to the brevet-rank of
lieutenant-colonel.

"A week more--only a week," murmured Mather, drowsily.

"I shall come back," said Durrance, with a laugh.

"Have you no friends?"

And there was a pause.

"Yes, I have friends. I shall have three months wherein to see them."

Durrance had written no word to Harry Feversham during these years. Not
to write letters was indeed a part of the man. Correspondence was a
difficulty to him. He was thinking now that he would surprise his
friends by a visit to Donegal, or he might find them perhaps in London.
He would ride once again in the Row. But in the end he would come back.
For his friend was married, and to Ethne Eustace, and as for himself his
life's work lay here in the Soudan. He would certainly come back. And
so, turning on h