to founder, I think."

But the warning came too late; the beast dropped on its knees, and Jack
went flying over his hideous head.

Love of adventure and excitement is one thing, patient endurance is
another. You want to combine the two to get good soldiers, and
Englishmen hitherto have done pretty well. So did these, only after a
certain number of hours' march they were less jocular and more vicious.
When they got to the first wells, where they expected to have a rest,
being by that time pretty well baked, the supply of water was found to
be so scarce that they had to push on at once; but they did it for the
most part in silence.

"Well, Tarrant," said Kavanagh, when they had been plodding on for some
two hours in dead silence, "have you not got a growl for us?"

"No, I haven't," replied the champion grumbler. "I did get a drink at
Hasheen, but this poor brute I am riding didn't, so I leave the growling
to him."

"Sure it ought to be put in the _Gazette_" cried Grady, waking up.
"First grumbler, Tarrant's camel, _vice_ Tarrant, contented."

"I never said I was contented," replied Tarrant.

"Only it is a consolation to know there's some one worse off than
yourself."

"Meaning the camels?"

"Aye, and not only them. Don't you remember that 19th Hussar chap who
came up the last halt? There was a go!"

"What do you mean?"

"Didn't you hear? Why, he belonged to Captain Fanshawe's troop, who
went skirmishing about, and caught a sheikh, called Abu Zoolah. Well,
he said that a while ago the Mudir of Dongola had offered a thousand
dollars for his head, and now it isn't worth the price of a pint. Just
think what a chance to nearly get, and miss! There's a lot of beer in a
thousand dollars."

"Sure, yes, that's hard lines," observed Grady. "What fun it would be
to go out shooting, and get a thousand dollars for every man you
bagged."

"Aye, that would make a man hold straight, if anything would," said
Macintosh. And there were a few spurts of talk like that, but mostly
they plodded on in silence.

It took close upon three days to reach Gakdul Wells, and during all that
time the camels were not watered, the supply at intermediate wells being
barely sufficient for the men. But when they got to Gakdul there was
abundance of the life-restoring element for all, beasts and men, thanks
to the Royal Engineers and their pumps. For the place was as wild and
romantic as you can imagine, the wells being hidden