Eustace! Tumble up! We are to start in half an hour."

It is dark as Erebus--dark as it can only be an hour or so before
daybreak. The camp-fires have long since gone out and it is raining
heavily. The speaker, stooping down, puts his head into a patrol tent
wherein two sleepers lie, packed like sardines.

A responsive grunt or two and Hoste replies without moving.

"Bosh! None of your larks, Tom. Why, it's pitch dark, and raining as
if some fellow were bombarding the tent with a battery of garden hoses."

"Tom can't sleep himself, so he won't let us. Mean of him--to put it
mildly," remarks the other occupant of the tent, with a cavernous yawn.

"But it isn't bosh," retorts Carhayes testily. "I tell you we are to
start in half an hour, so now you know," and he withdraws, growling
something about not standing there jawing to them all day.

Orders were orders, and duty was duty. So arousing themselves from
their warm lair the two sleepers rubbed their eyes and promptly began to
look to their preparations.

"By Jove!" remarked Eustace as a big, cold drop hit him on the crown of
the head, while two more fell on the blanket he had just cast off. "Now
one can solve the riddle as to what becomes of all the played out
sieves. They are bought up by Government Contractors for the
manufacture of canvas for patrol tents."

"The _riddle_! Yes. That's about the appropriate term, as witness the
state of the canvas."

"Oh! A dismal jest and worthy the day and the hour," rejoined the
other, lifting a corner of the sail to peer out. It was still pitch
dark and raining as heavily as ever. "We can't make a fire at any
price--that means no coffee. Is there any grog left, Hoste?"

"Not a drop."

"H'm! That's bad. What is there in the way of provender?"

"Nothing."

"That's worse. Gcalekaland, even, is of considerable account in the
world's economy. It is a prime corner of the said orb wherein to learn
the art of `doing without.'"

The two, meanwhile, had been preparing vigorously for their expedition,
which was a three days patrol. By the light of a tiny travelling lamp,
which Eustace always had with him when possible, guns were carefully
examined and rubbed over with an oil-rag; cartridges were unearthed from
cunning waterproof wrappers and stowed away in belts and pockets where
they would be all-ready for use; and a few more simple preparations--
simple because everything was kept in a state of readin