in your
mouth."

"But I am not a _horse_!" exclaimed Green.

"No, but the rule applies to other animals," said his tormentor,
gravely.

"I know you are chaffing me," said Green, and indeed the roars of
laughter were alone sufficient to show him that.

"But all the same, it is curious that a town should be built of child's
corals."

"That is why it has been selected as a good station for infantry," said
a young fellow amidst a chorus of groans.

"I tell you what it is, Tom," said one of the captains; "I will not have
you in my company if you do that again. The man who would make a bad
pun and a hackneyed pun in such beautiful scenery as this, would--I
don't know what enormity he would _not_ commit. Come late on parade,
very likely."

"Oh, no!" said Tom Strachan, for the lieutenant was no other then our
old friend, "I hope I know better than to infringe on the privileges of
my superior officers."

A general grin showed that Strachan had scored there; for Fitzgerald,
his captain, was noted for slipping into his place just in time to avoid
reprimand, and no sooner. But he could not make any reply without
fitting the cap; so he grinned too.

"Is Suakim an island?" he asked.

"Not now," replied MacBean. "When I was last here it was, but since
that Gordon has had a causeway made to the mainland. There, you can see
it now," he added, as the vessel steamed through a gap in the outer
coral reef.

"I wonder whether these passages in the reef were made by cutting the
coral out to build the town," said another.

"No," replied the doctor. "Their origin is rather curious. Sometimes,
in the wet season, torrents rush down from the mountains to the sea, and
the fresh water kills the polypus which makes the coral, and so stops
the formation of it just there, and makes an opening. This theory is
confirmed by the fact that all such passages through the reefs are
immediately opposite valleys."

"The town looks like a large fortification; I suppose the dwelling-
houses are behind the walls."

"No, those are the houses; and what look from here like loopholes are
the windows. The place is worth looking over, though you won't have
much time for that, I expect, nor yet for boating amongst the curious
coral caves, or looking at the queer creatures which serve for fish and
haunt them, until you have chawed up the Hadendowas and got Osman Digna
in a cage."

"Not then, I hope," said one of the seniors of the group. "I