ened that it already possessed three unusually good bowlers.

The first ball he sent up was a comparatively slow one; he wanted to
try his hand. It was dead on the wicket, and was blocked; then he drew
his breath, and sent the next ball in with all his force. A shout rose
from the Hussars as two of the wickets went flying into the air. Another
player came out, but at the fourth ball of the over his middle stump was
levelled.

"What do you think of that, Langley?" Captain Moffat asked the long-stop
as they walked together to the other end. "We have found a treasure. He
bowls about as fast as any one I have ever seen, and every ball is dead
on the wicket."

"He is first-class," the lieutenant, who was an old Etonian, said. "I
wonder where he learnt to play cricket?"

The wickets fell fast, and the innings concluded for 98, Edgar taking
seven wickets for twelve runs. Captain Moffat put him in third in the
second innings, and he scored twenty-four before he was caught out, the
total score of the innings amounting to 126. The Rifles had therefore
eighty-one runs to get to win. They only succeeded in making
seventy-six, eight of them being either bowled out by Edgar or caught
off his bowling. After this he took his place regularly in the Hussar
team, and it was generally acknowledged that it was owing to his bowling
that the regiment that season stood at the head of the Aldershot teams.

CHAPTER VI.

EGYPT.

Naturally his prowess at cricket made Trumpeter Smith a popular figure
in the regiment, and even at the officers' mess his name was frequently
mentioned, and many guesses were ventured as to who he was and what
school he came from.

That he was a gentleman by birth nobody doubted. There was nothing
unusual in that, for all the cavalry regiments contain a considerable
number of gentlemen in their ranks; men of this class generally
enlisting in the cavalry in preference to the other arms of the service.
It was, however, unusual for one to enlist at Edgar's age. Many young
men, after having failed to gain a commission by competition, enlist in
hopes of working up to one through the ranks. Another class are the men
who having got into scrapes of one kind or another, run through their
money, and tired out their friends, finally enlist as the only thing
open to them.

The first class are among the steadiest men in the regiment, and
speedily work their way up among the non-commissioned officers. The
second cl