way. The colonel, a fine old Celtic warrior, was
over at C Company in an instant.

"How are the men, Captain Foley?"

"Never better, sir," answered the senior captain, in the spirit that
makes a Madras officer look murder if you suggest recruiting his
regiment from the Punjab.

"Stiffen them up!" cried the colonel. As he rode away a colour-sergeant
seemed to trip, and fell forward into a mimosa bush. He made no effort
to rise, but lay in a heap among the thorns.

"Sergeant O'Rooke's gone, sorr," cried a voice. "Never mind, lads,"
said Captain Foley. "He's died like a soldier, fighting for his Queen."

"Down with the Queen!" shouted a hoarse voice from the ranks.

But the roar of the Gardner and the typewriter-like clicking of the
hopper burst in at the tail of the words. Captain Foley heard them, and
Subalterns Grice and Murphy heard them; but there are times when a deaf
ear is a gift from the gods.

"Steady, Mallows!" cried the captain, in a pause of the grunting
machine-gun. "We have the honour of Ireland to guard this day."

"And well we know how to guard it, captin!" cried the same ominous
voice; and there was a buzz from the length of the company.

The captain and the two subs. came together behind the marching line.

"They seem a bit out of hand," murmured the captain.

"Bedad," said the Galway boy, "they mean to scoot like redshanks."

"They nearly broke when the blacks showed on the hill," said Grice.

"The first man that turns, my sword is through him," cried Foley, loud
enough to be heard by five files on either side of him. Then, in a
lower voice, "It's a bitter drop to swallow, but it's my duty to report
what you think to the chief, and have a company of Jollies put behind
us." He turned away with the safety of the square upon his mind, and
before he had reached his goal the square had ceased to exist.

In their march in front of what looked like a face of cliff, they had
come opposite to the mouth of the gully, in which, screened by scrub and
boulders, 3,000 chosen dervishes, under Hamid Wad Hussein, of the
Baggaras, were crouching. Tat, tat, tat, went the rifles of three
mounted infantrymen in front of the left shoulder of the square, and an
instant later they wore spurring it for their lives, crouching over the
manes of their horses, and pelting over the sandhills with thirty or
forty galloping chieftains at their heels. Rocks and scrub and mimosa
swarmed suddenly into life. R