ders upon the palm of his hand. "We've let them shoot too soon, and
too often. We should have waited for the rush."

"You're a famous shot, Belmont," cried the Colonel. "I've heard of you
as one of the cracks. Don't, you think you could pick off their leader?"
"Which is he?"

"As far as I can make out, it is that one on the white camel on their
right front. I mean the fellow who is peering at us from under his two
hands."

Belmont thrust in his cartridge and altered the sights. "It's a shocking
bad light for judging distance," said he. "This is where the low
point-blank trajectory of the Lee-Metford comes in useful. Well, we'll
try him at five hundred." He fired, but there was no change in the white
camel or the peering rider.

"Did you see any sand fly?"

"No; I saw nothing." "I fancy I took my sight a trifle too full." "Try
him again." Man and rifle and rock were equally steady, but again the
camel and chief remained unharmed. The third shot must have been
nearer, for he moved a _few_ paces to the right, as if he were becoming
restless.

Belmont threw the empty rifle down with an exclamation of disgust.

"It's this confounded light," he cried, and his cheeks flushed with
annoyance. "Think of my wasting three cartridges in that fashion! If I
had him at Bisley I'd shoot the turban off him, but this vibrating glare
means refraction. What's the matter with the Frenchman?"

Monsieur Fardet was stamping about the plateau with the gestures of a
man who has been stung by a wasp. "_S'cre nom! S'cre nom!_" he shouted,
showing his strong white teeth under his black waxed moustache. He wrung
his right hand violently, and as he did so he sent a little spray of
blood from his finger-tips. A bullet had chipped his wrist. Headingly
ran out from the cover where he had been crouching, with the intention
of dragging the demented Frenchman into a place of safety, but he had
not taken three paces before he was himself hit in the loins, and fell
with a dreadful crash among the stones. He staggered to his feet, and
then fell again in the same place, floundering up and down like a horse
which has broken its back. "I'm done!" he whispered, as the Colonel ran
to his aid, and then he lay still, with his china-white cheek against
the black stones. When, but a year before, he had wandered under the
elms of Cambridge, surely the last fate upon this earth which he could
have predicted for himself would be that he should be slain by the
bu