ching at times comparatively
close to the position. Knowing, however, that the sentries were out in
front, the men for the most part slept quietly in spite of the noise and
firing. As the Arabs could fire only at random but two men were hit
during the night.

In the morning it was found that the number of the enemy on the hilltops
had largely increased during the night, and the bullets now flew
incessantly round and over the inclosure. Lying under such shelter as
the wall afforded, the men ate their breakfast of the tinned meat and
biscuits they carried in their haversacks.

"I must admit, Skinner," Easton said to his comrade, who had come across
from his own company to have a chat with him, "that this is more
unpleasant than I had expected. This lying here listening to the angry
hiss of the bullets is certainly trying; at least I own that I feel it
so."

"It is nasty," Skinner agreed. "I sha'n't mind it as soon as we go at
the beggars, but this doing nothing is, as you say, trying. I wish they
would make up their minds and come out to us, or if they cannot get up
their pluck enough to do it, that we should sally out and attack them."

"You may be sure we shall before long, Skinner. They know well enough
that we cannot stop here, but must move on to the water sooner or later;
and knowing that, they would be fools if they were to give up their
strong position to attack us here. At any rate I would rather be lying
behind this wall than moving about as the general and his staff are
doing. Major Dickson has just been shot through the knee, I hear. There!
Look! there is another officer down. I wonder who he is. I do hope they
won't pot Clinton."

A few minutes later an officer passing by told them that Major Gough of
the Mounted Infantry had been knocked senseless by a bullet which had
grazed his forehead, and that an officer of the artillery had been hit
in the back.

"What do you think of it, sergeant?" Edgar asked, as he and Sergeant
Bowen were eating their breakfast together under shelter of the wall.

"I think that it is going to be a hot job, lad. If they had attacked us
out in the plain we should have made short work of them, but it is a
different thing altogether among these hills. The beggars can run three
feet to our one, and if we were to climb one of these hills to attack
them, they would be on the top of the next before we got there. I see
nothing for it but to move straight for the wells, and let them d