asleep, who, when awakened, proved to be extremely drunk. I could not
dispense with the man; I had to cure him. There was but one chance of
doing this. I gave him then and there a severe beating. A fatigue party
of Carbineers pitched my kit into the baggage car, and threw John in
after it. Next day he was sore, but penitent. There was no need to send
him to Dwight, even if that establishment had been in the Punjaub
instead of in Illinois. John was redeemed without resorting to the
chloride of gold cure, and in his case at least, I was quite as
successful a practitioner as any Dr. Keeley could have been. John de
Compostella, &c., was a dead sober man during my subsequent experience
of him, at least till close on the time we parted.

[Illustration: "EXTREMELY DRUNK."]

And, once cured of fuddling, he turned out a most worthy and efficient
fellow. He lacked the dash of Andreas, but he was as true as steel. In
the attack on Ali Musjid, in the throat of the Khyber Pass, the native
groom, who was leading my horse behind me, became demoralised by the
rather heavy fire of big cannon balls from the fort, and skulked to the
rear with the horse. John had no call to come under fire, since the
groom was specially paid for doing so; but abusing the latter for a
coward in the expressive vernacular of India, he laid hold of the reins,
and was up right at my back just as the close musketry fighting began.
He took his chances through it manfully, had my pack pony up within half
an hour after the fighting was over, and before the darkness fell had
cooked a capital little dinner for myself and a comrade, whose
commissariat had gone astray. Next morning the fort was found evacuated.
I determined to ride back down the pass to the field telegraph post at
its mouth. The General wrote in my notebook a telegram announcing the
good news to the Commander-in-Chief; and poor Cavagnari, the political
officer, who was afterwards massacred at Cabul, wrote another message to
the same effect to the Viceroy. I expected to have to walk some distance
to our bivouac of the night; but lo! as I turned to go, there was John
with my horse, close up.

[Illustration: "JUST AS THE CLOSE MUSKETRY FIGHTING BEGAN."]

In one of the hill expeditions, the advanced section of the force I
accompanied had to penetrate a narrow and gloomy pass which was beset on
either side by swarms of Afghans, who slated us severely with their
long-range jezails. With this leading deta