and then fell again in the same place, floundering up and down like a
horse which has broken its back. "I'm done!" he whispered, as the
Colonel ran to his aid, and then he lay still, with his china-white
cheek against the black stones. When, but a year before, he had
wandered under the elms of Cambridge, surely the last fate upon this
earth which he could have predicted for himself would be that he should
be slain by the bullet of a fanatical Mohammedan in the wilds of the
Libyan Desert.

Meanwhile the fire of the escort had ceased, for they had shot away
their last cartridge. A second man had been killed, and a third--who
was the corporal in charge--had received a bullet in his thigh. He sat
upon a stone, tying up his injury with a grave, preoccupied look upon
his wrinkled black face, like an old woman piecing together a broken
plate. The three others fastened their bayonets with a determined
metallic rasp and snap, and the air of men who intended to sell their
lives dearly.

"They're coming!" cried Belmont, looking over the plain.

"Let them come!" the Colonel answered, putting his hands into his
trouser-pockets. Suddenly he pulled one fist out, and shook it
furiously in the air. "Oh, the cads! the confounded cads!" he shouted,
and his eyes were congested with rage.

It was the fate of the poor donkey-boys which had carried the
self-contained soldier out of his usual calm. During the firing they
had remained huddled, a pitiable group, among the rocks at the base of
the hill. Now upon the conviction that the charge of the Dervishes must
come first upon them, they had sprung upon their animals with shrill,