der-stained, choked with enemies and falling fast, still closed in on
the little rebel ensign that flapped from the mimosa bush.

It was a good half-hour before the square, having disentangled itself
from its difficulties and dressed its ranks, began to slowly move
forwards over the ground, across which in its labour and anguish it had
been driven. The long trail of Wessex men and Arabs showed but too
clearly the path they had come.

"How many got into us, Stephen?" asked the general, tapping his
snuff-box.

"I should put them down at a thousand or twelve hundred, sir."

"I did not see any get out again. What the devil were the Wessex
thinking about? The Guards stood well, though; so did the Mallows."

"Colonel Flanagan reports that his front flank company was cut off,
sir."

"Why, that's the company that was out of hand when we advanced!"

"Colonel Flanagan reports, sir, that the company took the whole brunt of
the attack, and gave the square time to re-form."

"Tell the Hussars to ride forward, Stephen," said the general, "and try
if they can see anything of them. There's no firing, and I fear that
the Mallows will want to do some recruiting. Let the square take ground
by the right, and then advance!"

But the Sheik Kadra of the Hadendowas saw from his knoll that the men
with the big hats had rallied, and that they were coming back in the
quiet business fashion of men whose work was before them. He took
counsel with Moussa the Dervish and Hussein the Baggara, and a woestruck
man was he when he learned that the third of his men were safe in the
Moslem Paradise. So, having still some signs of victory to show, he
gave the word, and the desert warriors flitted off unseen and unheard,
even as they had come.

A red rock plateau, a few hundred spears and Remingtons, and a plain
which for the second time was strewn with slaughtered men, was all that
his day's fighting gave to the English general.

It was a squadron of Hussars which came first to the spot where the
rebel flag had waved. A dense litter of Arab dead marked the place.
Within, the flag waved no longer, but the rifle stood in the mimosa
bush, and round it, with their wounds in front, lay the Fenian private
and the silent ranks of the Irishry. Sentiment is not an English
failing, but the Hussar captain raised his hilt in a salute as he rode
past the blood-soaked ring.

The British general sent home dispatches to his Government, and so did
the