o as to
provide a barrier against a sudden rush, made the men lie down with
their weapons beside them, posted sentries all round the bivouac, and
agreed to keep watch for an hour each, to ensure the sentries not going
calmly to sleep. Gerrard, who felt wide-awake again now after talking
and walking about, insisted on taking the first watch, which passed
uneventfully. Then he called Charteris, and dropping into the hollow
which the latter had scooped for himself in the sand, was asleep in a
moment, only to be waked, as it seemed, in another moment, by his
friend's shaking him vigorously.

"Time to get up, Hal! No shaving-water, so don't look round in that
bewildered way. You'd arrive at Ranjitgarh with a beard--a fine,
flowing, patriarchal, even prophetic beard, like what Ronaldson has
taken to sport--if this sort of thing went on long. He paid me a visit
when he was passing through to his district, and I assure you I was
immensely taken with his new adornment. It would be perfectly killing
among the ladies, I'm sure--throw our poor whiskers and moustaches
horribly into the shade. Talk of owls! I never saw any one stare like
you. This, my young friend, is a cup of tea, and this is a hard-boiled
egg--the best _choti haziri_ our chaps can manage--and the animal
beside you, looking astonished at your laziness, is your horse,
vulgarly termed a quad. But give me your hand, old boy, and let me
haul you up to take part in this epicurean meal."

"You're in spirits to-day, Bob," observed Gerrard, with a mighty yawn,
as he accepted the tin cup.

"Ray-ther, just a few! There's a rare good fight in front of us,
Hal--or else a very fine piece of strategy, which is almost as
satisfactory when you have women to look after. Sher Singh's fellows
are in occupation of the bad bit, as I suspected--posted on both sides
of the track. But--and here comes in the possibility of
strategy--there's another path besides that one, and I told my scouts
to investigate its practicability. They report that it's passable for
hotties, which is what I was inclined to doubt, but they don't think we
shall ever get the guns up there. Here's your problem, then, my
budding Wellington. Do we fight our way through by the ordinary
track--in view of the condition of our guns I omit the alternative of
shelling the enemy out of their hiding-places first--or do we take up
position with the guns before the mouth of the defile and make a feint
there,