long, long Indian Day_, _The Place where the Punkah-coolie died_,
and that crashing chorus which announces,

Youth's daring spirit, manhood's fire,
Firm hand and eagle eye,
Must he acquire, who would aspire
To see the gray boar die.

To-day, of all those jovial thieves who appropriated my commissariat
and lay and laughed round that waterproof sheet, not one remains. They
went to camps that were not of exercise and battles without empires.
Burmah, the Soudan, and the frontier,--fever and fight,--took them in
their time.

I drifted across to the men's fires in search of Mulvaney, whom I
found strategically greasing his feet by the blaze. There is nothing
particularly lovely in the sight of a private thus engaged after a
long day's march, but when you reflect on the exact proportion of the
'might, majesty, dominion, and power' of the British Empire which
stands on those feet you take an interest in the proceedings.

'There's a blister, bad luck to ut, on the heel,' said Mulvaney. 'I
can't touch ut. Prick ut out, little man.'

Ortheris took out his housewife, eased the trouble with a needle,
stabbed Mulvaney in the calf with the same weapon, and was swiftly
kicked into the fire.

'I've bruk the best av my toes over you, ye grinnin' child av
disruption,' said Mulvaney, sitting cross-legged and nursing his feet;
then seeing me, 'Oh, ut's you, Sorr! Be welkim, an' take that
maraudin' scutt's place. Jock, hold him down on the cindhers for a
bit.'

But Ortheris escaped and went elsewhere, as I took possession of the
hollow he had scraped for himself and lined with his greatcoat.
Learoyd on the other side of the fire grinned affably and in a minute
fell fast asleep.

'There's the height av politeness for you,' said Mulvaney, lighting
his pipe with a flaming branch. 'But Jock's eaten half a box av your
sardines at wan gulp, an' I think the tin too. What's the best wid
you, Sorr, an' how did you happen to be on the losin' side this day
whin we captured you?'

'The Army of the South is winning all along the line,' I said.

'Then that line's the hangman's rope, savin' your presence. You'll
learn to-morrow how we rethreated to dhraw thim on before we made thim
trouble, an' that's what a woman does. By the same tokin, we'll be
attacked before the dawnin' an' ut would be betther not to slip your
boots. How do I know that? By the light av pure reason. Here are three
companies av us ever so far inside av