might,
who did not pick up much of the war-vocabulary of the Fighting
MacDonalds, and Dan had no difficulty in gathering from Scotty's remark
that he was being strongly advised to immediately shut his mouth.

"What's he sayin'?" inquired the subaltern interestedly.

Dan's face was a study in pained and polite anxiety.

"I'm askin' yer pardon, sir," he said nervously, "but I think it would
be safer if ye wouldn't be lookin' at him anny longer. He's askin' me
which o' yer scalps I think would look best danglin' from his belt!"

There was a shout of long-suppressed laughter from the on-looking
Canadians, and the young officer's face flamed up angrily.

"I shall report you for this insolence!" he cried, suddenly awakening
to his ignominious position.

But his friend caught his arm and drew him away.

"Come out of this, Bob!" he cried in a choking voice. "You'll report
nothing! You'd better not monkey with those fellows. That young Irish
ruffian was improvising as he went along. And I'm awfully sorry, Bobby
dear, but I'm afraid I've won my bet," he added, allowing his laughter
to overcome him, "because--because--oh, Holy Maria, hold me up, I'm
going to die!--because Big Scalper speaks a language that's amazingly
like the stuff the pipers of the Black Watch jabber to one another!"

As Scotty moved down to the landing he gave his tormentor a
good-humoured shaking. "It's lots of fun, I know, Dan; but you'd
better keep that long, Irish tongue of yours still before the officers,
or you'll get into trouble. I don't know what that fellow's going to
do."

"Be jabers, it would be worth pickin' oakum for a year jist to take
down his blamed consate. Did ye iver see such a banty rooster as the
young wasp was? The little sailor chap wasn't half bad. And, say,
Scot, did ye hear him say he was a Canadian or from Canady, or
somethin' like that? It accounts for his good manners."

"Who, the bluejacket?" Scotty looked with interest after the young
man's retreating form. There was something in his trim, straight
figure that somehow seemed familiar.

"What's his name, I wonder?" he began, when a peremptory order
interrupted. "Stanwell, into number 150!" cried the sharp voice of the
overseer, and Scotty sprang into the stern of the boat and was off for
his first battle with the cataracts of the Nile.

XV

THE SECRET OF THE NILE

O mystic Nile! Thy secret yields
Before us; thy most ancient dreams
Are