iced five years' pay, and my step as well, gladly--gladly--sooner
than have missed it. Here you are, old boy! Drink! Drink to the latest
auxiliary force in the British Empire! Damn' thirsty climate, this."

He tossed his helmet aside, and sat down on the edge of the table--a
lithe, spare figure, brimming with active strength.

"I've literally coaxed those chaps into shape," he declared. "Oh, yes,
I've bullied 'em too--cursed 'em right and left; but they never turned a
hair--knew it was all for their good, and took it lying down. I've
taught 'em to wash too, you know. That was the hardest job of all. I
knocked one great brute all round the parade-ground one day, just to
show I was in earnest. He went off afterwards, and blubbed like a baby.
But in the evening I found him squatting outside, quite naked, and as
clean as a whistle. To quote the newspapers, I was profoundly touched.
But I didn't show it, you bet. I whacked him on the shoulder, and told
him to be a man."

He broke off to laugh at the reminiscence; and Montague Herne gravely
set down his glass, and turned his chair with its back to the sunlight.

"Do you know you've been here eighteen months?" he said.

Duncannon nodded.

"I feel as if I'd been born here. Why?"

"Most fellows," proceeded Herne, ignoring the question, "would have been
clamouring for leave long ago. Why, you have scarcely heard your own
language all this time."

"I have though," said Duncannon quickly. "That's another thing I've
taught 'em. They picked it up wonderfully quickly. There isn't one of
'em who doesn't know a few sentences now."

"You seem to have found your vocation in teaching these heathen to sit
up and beg," observed Herne, with a dry smile.

Duncannon turned dusky red under his tan.

"Perhaps I have," he said, with a certain, doggedness.

Herne, with his back to the light, was watching him.

"Well," he said finally, "we've served our turn. The battalion is going
Home!"

Duncannon gave a great start.

"Already?"

"After two years' service," the other reminded him grimly.

Duncannon fell silent, considering, the matter with bent brows.

"Who succeeds us?" he asked at length.

Herne shrugged his shoulders.

"You don't know?" There was sudden, sharp anxiety in Duncannon's voice.
He got off the table with a jerk. "You must know," he said.

Herne sat motionless, but he no longer looked the other in the face.

"You've taught 'em to fight," he said slowly. "The