s my guide?"

"Seelim--Jee!" shouted Joe, and the old gentleman who had visited
McKay that morning came ambling up from the cellar below.

"Is that old idiot to go with me? Why, he speaks no known tongue!"
cried McKay.

"Only Tartar. You know no Tartar? Well, he understand the stick. Show
it him--so," and Joe made a motion of striking the old man, who bent
submissively to receive the blow.

"Does he know where he is to take me? What we are going to do?"

"All right. You trust him: he take you past Cossacks." Joe muttered a
few unintelligible instructions to the guide, who received them with
deep respect, making a low bow, first to Joe and then to McKay.

"I give him _greggo_ and cap: you put them on when you like."

McKay knew that he could only pass the British sentries openly,
showing his uniform as a staff officer, so he made the guide carry the
clothes, and the two pressed forward together through Kadikoi, towards
the formidable line of works that now covered Balaclava.

He skirted the flank of one of the redoubts, and, passing beyond the
intrenchments, came at length to our most advanced posts, a line of
cavalry vedettes, stationed at a considerable distance apart.

"I am one of the headquarter staff," he said, briefly, to the sergeant
commanding the picket, "and have to make a short reconnaissance
towards Kamara. You understand?"

"Are we to support you, sir?"

"No; but look out for my coming back. It may not be till daybreak, but
it will be as well, perhaps, to tell your men who I am, and to expect
me. I don't want to be shot on re-entering our own lines."

"Never fear, sir, so long as we know. I will tell the officer, and
make it all right."

McKay now rode slowly on, his guide at his horse's head. They kept in
the valleys, already, as night was now advancing, deep in shade, and
their figures, which could have been clearly made out against the sky
if on the upper slopes, were nearly invisible on the lower ground.

It was a splendid summer's evening, perfectly still and peaceful, with
no sounds abroad but the ceaseless chirp of innumerable grasshoppers,
and the faint hum of buzzing insects ever on the wing. Only at
intervals were strange sounds wafted on the breeze, and told their own
story; the distant blare of trumpets, and the occasional "thud" of
heavy cannon, gun answering gun between besiegers and besieged. As
they fared along, McKay once or twice inquired, more by gesture than
by voice, ho