olish to many people, but you, who are an
Irishman, see the bearings of it, don't you now?"

"But," observed Macintosh, "a cataract in the eye is a skin, or
something growing over it, and a cataract in the river is a kind of
waterfall. They are not the same sort of thing at all."

"And is that so? To be sure, now, what a stupid mistake then I made.
And did you ever undergo the operation, now, Macintosh?"

"Well, beyond vaccination and the lugging out of a broken tooth, I don't
call to mind that I have been in the surgeon's hands; and if ye want to
know the truth, I don't care if I never am. Eh, but that tooth now, it
took a tug!"

"I thought you had never had it done," said Grady. "It's a pity, sure.
And what do you say makes a cataract in the Nile?"

"Surely you have seen enough of them for yersel'. It's a rapid where
the water comes down a steep part with great vehemence. But what
operation are ye talking of? I expect ye mean some sauce or other."

"Sure, no; it's only that which they say a Scotchman must have done
before a joke can be got into his head. But I don't belave it at all;
folks are such liars!" said Grady.

"I would have ye to know," said Macintosh, when the others had stopped
laughing, "that a Scotchman is not deficient in wut, but he can't see it
in mere nonsense."

All this talk was not spoken right off the reel, as it reads, but at
intervals, during pauses in the harder part of the work, and rests. And
it was lucky they could keep their spirits up; there is health and
vigour in that:

"The merry heart goes all the day;
The heavy tires in a mile--a!"

Shakespeare is always right.

But the sergeant was better than his word, and that was their last
afternoon of rowing or towing, for they reached the place where the
camels were collected that evening before sun-down. On the very next
day the new drill commenced, for there was not an hour to be lost.

The last days of 1884 had arrived, and Khartoum still held out. The
chances of reaching that place and rescuing Gordon were always present
to every mind; that was the one goal to which all efforts were tending.
But there was no good in for ever talking about it; on the contrary, it
was more healthy to divert the thoughts, if possible, in other
directions. A fall from a horse is unpleasant, and risky to the bones,
but a tumble off a camel is worse, because it is more dangerous to fall
ten feet than five. The first step was a diff