scious thought, a restless longing for the ending of the day. Time after time Bransome got up and walked among his men and horses to see that all was well. It was unnecessary, he knew; but it was something to do, and each time he returned to his temporary quarters in the shadow of the mud wall with a little glow of pride in the triumph of British pluck and discipline over the worst physical discomforts. Everything was in order. Horses and saddlery, men and baggage, all were disposed as they should be, ready to spring together in marching array at the first alarm.

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It was tea-time at last, and unless one has spent the whole day out in the desert under a blazing sun, one cannot adequately realise what "tea-time " means. Tommy at any time has a vast capacity for tea, but on the march it has an added gratefulness that words fail to describe. On that blazing afternoon under the palm-trees of El-Khana, the great steaming cans that were carried round, though they might have seemed but to be adding heat to heat, were welcomed with an eagerness that one would have thought impossible to arouse out of the listlessness of a few moments before. Refreshed and glad to be moving again on the short march that would bring them to the day's end and the coolness of the night, they were soon astir. The sun was still high in the west, but the ful

ness of its heat was spent, and men and horses moved off with a briskness and cheerfulness reminiscent of the morning's start. Only four miles of the day's march remained, and by the time they reached the camping-ground, hot, dusty, and tired again, the terrors of the day were past. That first faint and exquisitely grateful freshness in the air that comes with sundown was just arising, and men and horses sniffed it with lungs extended and infinite delight.

The brief Eastern twilight faded quickly into the exquisite Eastern night. Out under the sky Bransome lay awake, enthralled by the beauty of it. The heavens were a deep unvaried blue, unshadowed by the smallest cloud. Stretching in one vast vault above the boundless desert, they seemed to dwarf even its vastness into insignificance. The great world slept, powerless in the darkness that only the unmoving brilliance of the stars illumined. The earth and all that was therein, the discomfort and the heat, the joys and sorrows of the day, grew small and insignificant faced by those myriad worlds that looked down upon them with such calm cold majesty. From end to end of the sky they blazed, from giant constellations, steadfast, unblinking, to pin-head points of light, fitful and uncertain. So still it was, it seemed as if the earth lay hushed in awe at the sublime beauty of it all. Only occasionally the neighing

of a horse or the barking of a village dog round the dying camp-fires beyond the palmtrees broke the silence. And each time they came and went, they seemed but to accentuate the stillness, a feeble human sound thrown out in protest, and lost upon the silence of the night. Wrapped in the wonder of it, Bransome fell at last to dreamless sleep.

The

The days that succeeded were even as the first day. Nothing varied the morning and the evening march. Nothing mitigated the terrors of the long day's halt. Heat and flies and dust and weariness moved with them as they marched. desert was unvarying. Each march was as the one that went before, the same uneven track across the sandy plain, the same tired scrub on either side, the same few and far between mud-walled groups of huts and clumps of palms. Only across the drab monotony one thing was changing, ever growing more beautiful in varying shape and form and light and shade, ever inspiring new hope and expectation in the little company of marching men. The outline of the hills towards which they moved grew clearer day by day, each hour disclosing some new new beauty, and slowly opening out to view the defile through which they must pass onwards to their journey's end. Behind those hills, they knew, lay fertile smiling meadows such as they had never seen in all the days of their Eastern sojourn, and the

thought of them blew cool across the hottest march.

It was on the morning of the fifth day that they entered the defile. It was a stiff climb for tired men and horses, but scouts sent on ahead in all directions had reported no sign of trouble, and they could march at ease. The pathway, sometimes a narrow track cut by the feet of many passing mules along the cliff-side, sometimes a broad road where ten could pass abreast, wound zigzag up the pass. The ascent told heavily, and many a halt was called before the top was reached. But as, near noonday, one by one, hot and breathless, the men came through the last narrow defile on to the open plateau, the memory of the toil and discomforts of the road fell from them. For here at last was surely the promised land. Before them, shut in by long low ranges of hills on either side, lay a broad open stretch of pasture, tree clad, wellwatered, green with a lifeinspiring freshness to eyes seared with the dust of the desert. There were few who did not view it with a quick intake of the breath. So sharp the contrast with what had gone before, its sudden beauty was almost overwhelming, and, the order to halt given, tired men sank down with exclamations of wonder and relief. To others besides Bransome came back again the words of the Psalmist that seemed to sum up in one brief phrase the wonder of the scene that lay

jured up during the long six days' march, this was one that had never crossed his mental vision. He had been prepared for horror, bloodshed, murder, sudden death. These would have roused all his fighting instincts, the object of the long, hot, weary march. What he saw was almost an affront to him and his men, who had come so far and at such urgency to succour fellow-countrymen in need. For a moment he stood rooted to the ground, and watched unnoticed. In front of him was a small veranda, evidently on the cool side of the house, spread with dhurries, and furnished with long wicker chairs and tables. And in three of the chairs lay at ease three Englishmen, with drinks in long glasses beside them. To Bransome, fresh from the hardships of the road, and half expecting to find them mangled corpses, they looked revoltingly luxurious. Hot, thirsty, and weary with the effort to save them, their utter coolness and unconcernedness swept him with sudden fury. With something like an oath he strode in amongst them. The three recumbent figures sat up in amazement at the sudden appearance of the angry perspiring apparition. For an Englishman to appear in their midst without warning, out of the blue, was sufficiently astonishing, but why should he be regarding them apparently speechless with indignation and amazement?

For a moment there was a

dramatic silence. Three astonished men regarded a fourth, who was regarding them with no less astonishment. Then "Hullo!" said Masson, the Political Officer feebly. With an effort Bransome pulled himself together. After all, it might not be their fault that they were still alive and well.

"We thought there was trouble here," he said coldly.

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Trouble?" repeated the three men in obvious surprise.

It flashed across Bransome's puzzled brain that perhaps it was all some evil hoax. But, looking at the three men still fixedly regarding him, it was impossible to believe that their amazement was not as genuine as his. Yet, if it was not a hoax, it must surely be some horrible mistake.

Then Masson bestirred himself. Surely this was some officer who had gone mad, and, wandering the desert under some hallucination, had reached them here. Such things had been known before in the tragic story of Mespot.

"Sit down and have a drink," he said kindly, falling back upon that priceless introductory phrase that has filled so many an awkward pause among Englishmen in the East.

Bransome, tired and thirsty as he was, brushed the wellintentioned levity aside. Somehow he must explain.

"You said that you were all right so long as your flag was flying. The plane that flew over you a few days ago found your flag-staff broken and your