tted to us,
this morning."

"I am glad to see you, Mr. Brooke; but I should be more glad,
still, if you had been coming to join, for we have lost several
officers from sickness, and there are others unfit for duty. When
did you arrive?"

"I arrived only yesterday morning, sir. I came here in disguise,
having made my way down from Ava."

"Oh, indeed! We heard a report that a white man had arrived, in
disguise, at the lines of the 45th Native Infantry; but we have had
no particulars, beyond that."

"I was captured at Ramoo, sir, while I was acting as an officer of
the native levy. Fortunately I was stunned by the graze of a musket
ball and, being supposed dead, was not killed; as were all the
other officers who fell into the hands of the Burmese. Their fury
had abated by the time I came to myself, and I was carried up to
Ava with some twenty sepoy prisoners. After a time I made my escape
from prison, and took to the forest; where I remained some weeks,
till the search for me had abated somewhat. Then I made my way down
the country, for the most part in a fishing boat, journeying only
at night, and so succeeded in getting in here. Fortunately I speak
the Mug dialect, which is very closely akin to the Burmese."

"Well," the colonel said, "I hope that you will consider the
regiment your home; though I suppose that, until the campaign is at
an end, you will only be able to pay us an occasional visit. You
are lucky in getting the staff appointment. No doubt your being
able to talk Burmese has a great deal to do with it."

"Everything, I think, sir. The general had no one on his staff who
could speak the language and, unless he happened to have with him
one of the very few men here who can do so, often had to wait some
time before a prisoner could be questioned."

He remained chatting for half an hour, and then rode back to the
town; taking the other road to that which he had before traversed.

Chapter 8: The Pagoda.

Two days later a prisoner was captured, when endeavouring to crawl
up the pagoda hill--having slipped past the outposts--and was sent
into headquarters. Stanley questioned him closely; but could obtain
no information, whatever, from him. Telling him to sit down by the
house, he placed a British sentry over him.

"Keep your eye," he said, "on the door of the next house. You will
see a Burman come out. You are to let him talk with the prisoner,
but let no one else speak to him. Don't look as if y