nd.

"Ah, would yer!" cried Davis, presently; and there was a gasp and a cry,
which might be rage or pain, as he thrust his bayonet into an Arab who,
though his legs were shattered, made a cut at him with his sword as he
passed. And Davis was as tender-hearted a man as ever stepped; liked
playing with children; petted dogs, cats, and birds; and would risk his
own life to save that of another, though a perfect stranger. He had
proved it, and had the right to wear the medal of the Royal Humane
Society on his right breast. But circumstances are too strong for all
of us.

The search was long and ineffective.

"You are certain it was in the nullah that Mr Strachan killed the Arab
who was on the top of you?" Green asked Davis.

"Certain, sir; and that rock I showed you was the one the Johnny jumped
off, I am pretty sure; though there's such a many of them, and they are
so like, I wouldn't swear."

"And you had not leisure to look very particularly. But still, though
you saw him here, he may have gone back for some of his men, for in
dodging the enemy round stones and bushes they got scattered a bit. We
had better go over the ground where we were so hard at it."

So they clambered up the further bank of the nullah, and stood again on
the ground over which they had advanced, been driven back, and advanced
again in the morning. Here the Soudanese lay in hundreds, piled up in
places in heaps, three or even four deep, one on the top of another.
And here too the English dead were terribly thick. But the ambulance
had been at work for some hours, and all who had life in them were
removed, while many of the dead had been withdrawn from the mingled
heaps, and laid decently side by side, and apart.

Green saw that this acre of the Aceldama had been, or was being,
thoroughly explored, and he returned to the nullah, where the three
continued their search, examining now the outlying crevices and bushes,
where individual men, stricken to death, had crawled away; or the
pursuing English, observing skulking foes, had spread to clear them out,
and prevent being fired upon from the rear after they had passed; and
searching in this manner they got separated.

Where could poor Tom Strachan have got to? The sun was sinking fast,
there would not be much more daylight, and if he were not found soon he
might be left without help all night. For Green would not think of him
as dead, and no more for that matter did Gubbins, though Da