xcept the big Scotsman Macleod. To make matters worse, the
insects of the place were unusually active. One of them especially, not
much bigger than a pin-point, was irritating out of all proportion to
its size, and it kept up, during the night, the warfare which the
innumerable flies had waged during the day.

"It's no use trying to sleep, Willie," said Miles to Armstrong, who was
next to him, as they lay on the flat roof of the redoubt, with their
rifles resting on the sandbags which formed a slight protection from the
enemy's fire when one of the frequent attacks was made on the town.

"So I find," returned his friend. "I have tried everything. Counting
up to hundreds of thousands has made me rather more wakeful. I find
that thinking of Emmy does me most good, but even that won't produce
sleep."

"Strange!" remarked Miles. "I have been trying the same sort of thing--
without success. And I've had an unusually hard day of it, so that I
ought to be ready for sleep. You were in luck, being on police-duty."

"H'm! I don't think much of my luck. But let's hear what you have been
up to all day."

"Well, first, I began by turning out at 5:30 a.m.," said Miles, rolling
with a sigh on his other side, for a uniform, cross-belts, boots,
ammunition, etcetera, don't, after all, form an easy night-dress.
"After a cup of coffee I fell in with a lot of our fellows, and was told
off for fatigue-duty. Worked away till 7:30. Then breakfast. After
that I had to clear up the mess; then got ready for inspection parade at
9:30, after which I had to scrub belts, and clean up generally. Dinner
over, I was warned to go on night-guard; but, for some reason which was
not stated to me, that was changed, and I'm not sorry for it, because
the heat has taken a good deal out of me, and I prefer lying here beside
you, Willie, to standing sentry, blinking at the desert, and fancying
every bush and stone to be a dusky skirmisher of Osman Digna. By the
way, if that mountain range where the enemy lies is twelve or fourteen
miles distant from the town, they have a long way to come when they take
a fancy to attack us--which is pretty often too. They say he has got
two hundred thousand men with him. D'you think that can be true?"

A gentle trumpet-note from his friend's nose told Miles that he had
brought about what thoughts of Emmy had failed to accomplish!

Thoughts of Marion had very nearly brought himself to a similar
condition, w