tting about Minnie.
I'll tell her you asked after her, my boy. It will please her, for she
doesn't know what a reckless young scamp you are, and she always talks
of you as if you were her own boy. Going?"

"Yes, Doctor."

"All right and square, my boy? No shot or spear holes in you?"

"No, sir; I'm as sound as sound."

"That's right. If you do get into any trouble, you know where I am; and
though I don't want you, you will be welcome to our mess--and a nice
mess we are in, eh, Archie?--Come, look sharp, you British soldiers, and
clear away all this scum."

"Only too glad, sir," said Archie, and he hurried away to have a few
words with the sentry who commanded the landing-place, and who was so
intent at the window, watching the edge of the jungle, that he did not
hear his visitor till he spoke.

"Got company, Mister Archie, sir? Yes; that French chap. Doctor said
if he was not brought up here where he'd be quiet he would go off sudden
like. Not very cheerful company, for he's awful bad, and when he does
talk it's all in his _parly-voo, kesky say, pally wag bang_ lingo that
don't mean nothing as I can make out."

"Ah, poor fellow! I suppose he's very bad."

"Oh, that's right, sir! Poor fellow, and we are all very sorry for him
and much obliged because he was kind enough to come and blow all our
cartridges to Jericho, or elsewhere, as they say on the soldiers'
letters. You stop here a little while, sir, and you will hear him begin
to jabber. Talk about that mahout's _pa-ta-ta-ma-ta-ja-ja-ja_--this
chap goes twice as fast."

"Well, Pete, I can't stop talking to you. I only wanted to take you in
my round. Are you all right?"

"Right as a trivet, sir; only I am getting awful short of ammunition. I
don't want to keep on potting these 'ere fellows, but somehow I took to
rifle-shooting. There's some fun in hitting a mark at a distance, and
that's the only thing I ever got a kind word for from old Tipsy. He
said I could shoot."

"Yes, you are a very good marksman, Pete; and that's why you are
stationed here."

"Yes, I suppose so, sir. But 'tain't my fault that I'm a good marksman,
as you call it. It come quite easy like. I suppose it's good for us,
but it's very bad for these 'ere Malay chaps, and it does make me feel a
bit squirmy when one of them gives me a chance, and then it's _oracle,
phit_, and down he goes, and me loading again. I don't want to shoot
them. But then if I don't keep on kn