h made a
trouble of nothing, he was a general favourite wherever he went. He was
attached as a galloper--or bearer of orders--to the General's staff,
but, being employed to take a message the day before to his own
regiment, he charged with them, and the officers of the Blankshire who
knew him, and witnessed the charge from a distance, were anxious to know
for certain what had occurred, the reports which had reached them being
too contradictory for reliance.

"Well, Charley, did you eat them all yesterday?"

"Not quite; we have left a few for you. Eat them, by Jove! They were
near eating us."

"Why, you seemed to go through them grandly."

"Yes, but it was like going through water, which closes on you as you
go. The beggars lay flat, or crouched in holes, and cut at the horses
as they passed, to hamstring or maim them; and good-bye to the poor
fellow whose horse fell! We ought to have had lances, and it would have
been a very different tale. But the troopers' swords could not reach
the beggars, who are as lithe as monkeys. If they had run it would have
been easy to get a cut at them; so it would if they had stood up. But
they were as cool as cucumbers, and dodged just at the right moment. Of
course some were not quite so spry as others, and got cut down; it was a
case of the survival of the fittest. What acrobats they would be in
time if this game lasted long enough!

"But it was like a nightmare. You know when you have a dream that you
are trying to kill something which won't die; some beast of the eel
persuasion. We went through them, cutting all we knew; re-formed; came
back, doing ditto; through them a third time; and _then_ there was no
satisfaction worth calling such. The fellows were broken up indeed, and
a good lot were sabred, but not so many as there ought to have been
after undergoing one cutting up, let alone three. And the scattered
individuals still showed fight. And we lost awfully; no wonder, for I
will tell you what I saw.

"A man rode at an Arab who fired and missed him, and then seized his
spear, with the apparent intention of meeting him as an infantry soldier
should, according to Cocker. But when the horse was two yards from him
he fell flat as a harlequin. The trooper leant over on the off side as
low as he could and cut at the beggar, but could not reach him, and the
moment he was past, the Arab jumped up and thrust his spear through him
from behind. I never saw anything do