, the victim of a dastardly ghazi
outrage the day before.

Just facing the cricket-ground is a shady and flowery patch of ground,
enclosed by a simple brick wall and containing a number of white
tombstones. Here lie many gallant officers, military and civil--some
killed in action; others, like the present Captain Donaldson, killed
by religious fanatics in Bannu and the neighbourhood while in the
execution of their duties; others, again, carried off by pestilence
and disease. Here, too, in lowlier grass-grown graves, lie a number
of the native Christian community. East and West, high and low,
all gathered in one small plot, covered with the same Mother Earth
to await their common resurrection--so glorious in its expectations
for some, so dread in its possibilities for others.

Here, just facing the now deserted cricket-ground, the long procession
halts; the chaplain, just arrived after a hasty drive of ninety miles
from Dera Ismail Khan, begins to recite the solemn verses of the Burial
Service, and the booted and spurred officers do their last brotherly
service and shoulder their comrade's coffin from the gun-carriage
to the grave. The strains of the "Last Post" sound forth--a shrill
call to the sombre mountains round as the last rays of the setting
sun fall slanting through the foliage on the faces of the mourners;
some sharp words of command ring forth from a native officer; the
troops wheel about, and all is solitude and silence.

Only the day before a new regiment was to arrive in Bannu, and, as the
custom is, the station regiments were marching out with their band
to welcome them in. At the head of the regiment a group of officers
were riding, including the officer commanding the district, Colonel
Aylmer, V. C., and his Brigade-Major, Captain Donaldson. Just beyond
the fort the road narrows a little to pass over a culvert, and the
officer on the outside of Captain Donaldson fell back a little to
make room for him.

Behind that culvert a Mahsud Wazir was in hiding, determined to kill an
infidel and gain a martyrdom in the most sensational manner possible,
so that for many an evening in years to come the tribal bards might
sing his praises round the camp-fires and in the village chauks. Just
as Captain Donaldson, now on the outside rank, came abreast of him,
he sprang out; a pistol shot rang through the air, and the officer
fell mortally wounded. There was, of course, no escape for the Mahsud;
bullet and bayonet