ppointment amongst both officers and
men of the company.

"We will be out of all the fun entirely," said Grady. "They will catch
the Mahdi, relieve Khartoum, rescue Gordon, and have all their names in
the newspapers--and we will have nothing to say to it at all, at all."

"Don't you believe it," said Kavanagh. "The general would not send a
rifle away if he were going to attack. He has heard something, or knows
something we can't guess at, and means waiting for more troops to come
up, you may depend. And our expedition has something to do, I should
not wonder, with covering the flank of the reinforcements. We shall be
called in, no fear, before the big battle is fought."

But even with those who thought differently the matter did not weigh
very heavily. They had already fallen into the true campaigning frame
of mind which takes things as they come--good quarters and bad; fighting
and resting; outpost duty or guarding stores, even wounds and death--
very philosophically.

As the company was to start some time before daybreak, the men wisely
left off discussing matters, and went to sleep. Then came their rising
while it was still night, and the raking together of the embers of the
bivouac fire, and breakfasting; then the saddling and lading of camels,
amid the dismal lamentations of those grievance-mongering animals; then
the start in darkness, and the mind adapting itself to the lethargic
monotony of the tramp. Every one was chilly; every one was a trifle
sullen at not being in bed; no one was inclined to talk.

The silence was only broken by the _swish_, _swish_, _swish_ of the
camels' feet through the sand, the most ghostlike and uncanny of sounds;
so slight, so continuous, so wide-spread. To meet a train of camels in
the dark would be enough to convert any unbeliever in supernatural
phenomena, I mean if he did not know anything about it.

When the sun rose every man seemed to wake up and feel new life in him,
and they began to talk, just as the dicky birds tune up for a song on
the like occasion. Yet the scene was desolate and dreary enough for
Dante or Gustave Dore.

After some hours' march they passed this barren land and approached the
foot of a hill where the mimosa was plentiful again, and other shrubs
were seen, with herbage, scant indeed, but good for camels, who will
browse upon what would hardly tempt a donkey. Here a halt was called,
and while the men dismounted and lay down, the three offic