ect in the least
that because it is possible you are my son you should regard me in the
light of your father.

"I can understand that after all your life looking at the captain as
your father, and after he and his wife being everything to you, you
would find it mighty hard to regard me in that way. I don't expect it,
and I don't want it. If he is not your father by blood, he is your
father in right of bringing you up and caring for you and educating you,
and it is quite right and quite proper that you should always regard him
so. You can look upon me, lad, just as a foster-father--as the husband
of the woman who was for a time your nurse, and who would gladly repair
the wrongs he did to you. I just say this, lad, to make things straight
between us. I want us to be friends. I am an old soldier, and you a
young one. We are comrades in this expedition. We have taken to each
other, and would do each other a good turn if we had a chance. I don't
want more than that, lad, and I don't expect you to give more. If I can
lend you a helping hand on or off duty, you know I shall do so. So let
us shake hands on it, and agree to let the matter drop altogether until
this campaign is over. Then we will talk over together what had best be
done. A few months longer of this life will do you no harm, and you will
make all the better officer for having had two or three years in the
ranks. But I will say at once that I think that you are wrong, now you
know how the matter stands, in not writing at once to the captain and
letting him know the truth. Still there is no harm in its standing over
for the present. You must go through the expedition as you are now, and
they would be no easier for knowing that you are exposed to danger out
here than they are at present when they know nothing of your
whereabouts."

Edgar shook the sergeant heartily by the hand, and the bargain was
sealed.

Every day troops kept on arriving, and by the 27th of December there
were already at Korti a considerable portion of the Sussex, the Duke of
Cornwall's Light Infantry, the Essex, Gordon Highlanders, Black Watch,
and Staffordshire, all of whom had come up in the whale-boats; a large
number of the commissariat, transport, hospital, and engineer train in
native boats; the whole of the Guards' Camel Corps, and the greater
portion of the Heavy and Light Camel Corps, a hundred men of the
Marines, who were provided with camels, and appointed to form part of
the Guards