half."

"Go an to y'r condinsation, Coolin, fer the face uv ye's not fit fer
dacint company, wan side paralytic wid lyin', an' the other struck
simple wid tellin' the truth. An' see, Coolin, fer the warnin' she give
ye fer me, the kit I lave is yours, an' what more, be the will uv God!
An' what ye've told me ye'll kape to y'self, Coolin, or hell shall be
your portion."

"He tuk it fer truth an' a warnin', an' he would not be denied," said
Coolin to Henry Withers, of the Sick Horse Depot, two hours afterwards,
when the Berkshires and the Sikhs and the Bengalese were on the march
towards Tamai.

"The bloomin' trick is between the Hadendowas and the Subadar," answered
he of the Sick Horse Depot. "Ye take it fer a warnin', thin?" asked
Coolin uneasily.

"I believe you," answered Henry Withers.

As for William Connor, when he left Suakim, his foot was light, his
figure straight, and he sent a running fire of laughter through his
company by one or two "insinsible remarks," as Coolin called them.

Three hours' marching in the Soudan will usually draw off the froth of
a man's cheerfulness, but William Connor was as light of heart at Tofrik
as at Suakim, and he saw with pleasure two sights--the enemy in the
distance and the 15th Sikhs on their right flank, with Subadar Goordit
Singh in view.

"There's work 'ere to-day for whoever likes it on the 'op!" said Henry
Withers, of the Sick Horse Depot, as he dragged his load of mimosa to
the zeriba; for he had got leave to come on with his regiment.

"You'll find it 'otter still when the vedettes and Cossack Posts come
leadin' in the Osnum Digners. If there ain't hoscillations on that
rectangle, strike me in the night-lights!" said Corporal Bagshot, with
his eye on the Bengalese. "Blyme, if the whole bloomin' parallogram
don't shiver," he added; "for them Osnum Digners 'as the needle, and
they're ten to one, or I'm a bloater!"

"There's Gardner guns fer the inimy an' Lushai dandies fer us," broke
in Connor, as he drove a stake in the ground, "wet without and dry
within--an' Gardner guns are divils on the randan. Whin they get to work
it's like a self-actin' abbatoir."

"I 'opes ye like it, Connor. Bloomin' picnic for you when the Osnum
Digners eat sand. What ho!"

"I have no swarms of conscience there, Billy Bag; shot. For the bones uv
me frinds that's lyin' in this haythen land, I'll clane as fur as I can
reach. An' I'll have the run uv me belt to-day, an--" he added, t