"The fact is, my dear Belmont--I'm sure you would not let it go
further--above all not to the ladies; but I am rather older than I used
to be, and rather than lose the military carriage which has always been
dear to me, I--"

"Stays, be Jove!" cried the astonished Irishman.

"Well, some slight artificial support," said the Colonel stiffly, and
switched the conversation off to the chances of the morrow.

It still comes back in their dreams to those who are left, that long
night's march in the desert. It was like a dream itself, the silence of
it as they were borne forward upon those soft, shuffling sponge feet,
and the flitting, flickering figures which oscillated upon every side of
them. The whole universe seemed to be hung as a monstrous time-dial in
front of them. A star would glimmer like a lantern on the very level of
their path. They looked again, and it was a hand's-breadth up, and
another was shining beneath it. Hour after hour the broad stream flowed
sedately across the deep blue background, worlds and systems drifting
majestically overhead, and pouring over the dark horizon. In their
vastness and their beauty there was a vague consolation to the
prisoners; for their own fate, and their own individuality, seemed
trivial and unimportant amid the play of such tremendous forces.
Slowly the grand procession swept across the heaven, first climbing,
then hanging long with little apparent motion, and then sinking grandly
downwards, until away in the east the first cold grey glimmer appeared,
and their own haggard faces shocked each other's sight.

The day had tortured them with its heat, and now the night had brought