ick, so worn were they with fatigue, while round our lines all night
long the wailing of the camp followers was to be heard, for they
perished by hundreds, the dead being found, when the grey light of
morning broke, lying stiff and stark among the tent ropes."

"But you reached the fort at last?" asked the Ensign.

"Yes, we did reach it at last, didn't we, Hughes?" answered Major
Ashley. "Do you remember the day an orderly rode into our lines,
bearing an order from General Black Jack, as we used to call him,
forbidding us to enter the fort; and how, for the sake of doing
something, we marched short marches daily round yonder walls, until at
last our colonel saw that the men were growing mutinous, and told Black
Jack that he would storm the fort if not allowed to enter?"

"I remember it well; and he gave way. The gates were thrown open, and
the scourge left us. But it's late; and if we are to have any chance of
the tiger, you had better get your rifles, and we will have the sheep
picketed. See, they are closing the messroom doors, and putting out the
lights."

"So they are," returned a third, yawning; "I shall wish you luck, and
turn in."

"I say, Harris, mind you don't make a vacancy in the Light Company
yourself," said a captain of Grenadiers, as a group of the late
billiard-players went laughing and talking down the steps into the
moonlight. "I don't believe you ever saw a tiger, or know anything
about a rifle."

"Never fear for me, Hunt; an ensign's not worth a tiger's trouble. If
you would consent, now, to be picketed instead of the sheep, Captain--"

"Go to the devil! Good-night, Hughes." And "Good-night--a pleasant
journey," rang out cheerily from one after another as they crossed the
mess-compound, and took their way to their respective quarters.

"You are an old hand, Hughes," said the Ensign, after a short pause.
"Do you remember the Rajah who was a prisoner on the top of Bellary
rock?"

"Don't I!" replied the Captain. "I say, Curtis," he continued,
addressing a lieutenant of his own company, "you relieved the man who so
nearly let the old Rajah loose."

"Ay, poor old fellow; he's dead now, and can't ask his old, well-known
question."

"What was it, Curtis? What did he ask, and who was he?"

"Well, wait till I have lit this cigar, and I'll tell you," answered
Curtis. "We have an hour yet before the moon gets low, and those black
palkywallers are making such a row."

The cigar was lig