n action
which, at any other time, would do you great credit."

He spoke sharply and sternly. Gregory again saluted.

"I knew afterwards that I had done wrong, sir; but I did not stop to
think, and acted on the impulse of the moment."

"That may be," the Sirdar said; "but officers should think, and not act
on the impulse of the moment."

Gregory again saluted, and fell back. Three or four minutes later, the
two generals separated. General Hunter came up to him, and shook him
warmly by the hand.

"You must not mind what the Sirdar said, Hilliard. It was a very noble
action, and did you credit, and I can assure you that that was the
opinion of all who knew you; but to the Sirdar, you know, duty is
everything, and I think you are lucky in not being sent down, at once,
to the base. However, he said to me, after you had left him:

"'I shall be too busy this evening, but bring the young fellow with
you, tomorrow evening. I must hear how it was that Mahmud spared him.'

"I told him that I understood, from your black, that the woman was
Mahmud's favourite wife, and that she took you under her care.

"By the way, have you heard that Mahmud is captured? Yes, he is caught,
which is a great satisfaction to us; for his being sent down, a
prisoner, will convince the tribesmen that we have gained a victory, as
to which they would otherwise be incredulous. I hear that the Egyptian
brigade, which was to the extreme left, has captured Mahmud's wife, and
a great number of women."

"With your permission, sir, I will go over there at once, and ask
Colonel Lewis that she may receive specially good treatment. She has
been extremely kind to me, and it is to her influence over Mahmud that
I owe my life. Up to this morning Mahmud would have spared me, but
Osman Digna insisted that I should be killed, and he was obliged to
give way. They fastened me to a tree behind the trench, just inside the
zareba, and I should certainly have been killed by our own musketry
fire, had not my boy, who had come into the camp in disguise, cut my
cords. I fell as if shot, and he threw himself down on me; until the
Camerons burst in, when I at once joined them, and did what little I
could in the fight."

"I will give you a line to Colonel Lewis, to tell him that Mahmud's
wife, whom you will point out, is to be treated with respect; and that
her people may be allowed to make her an arbour of some sort, until the
Sirdar decides what is to be done with her.