le.

Half a dozen puffs of smoke spurted out of the cover, and as many
bullets came singing overhead. The convoy did not halt, but moved
steadily on, some of the escort dismounting, while the others led their
camels. When the men on foot got a chance they halted and fired, and
then doubled on again, and as they shot a very great deal better than
their enemies, they made them chary of exposing themselves, and so held
their fire in check. As the convoy came abreast of the position,
however, the volleys broke out afresh, and the skirmishers spread, some
in front, others in rear of it, to draw the fire on themselves, and away
from the sick and wounded men. But not with entire success, for it
seemed to be the object of the ambushed Arabs to annoy these with their
fire rather than to fight the escort. There was a poor fellow named
Binks, whose right-hand had been shattered and amputated, riding
sideways on a camel, balanced by another invalid whose head had come in
contact with a fragment of a shell, and was bandaged up. Binks had been
despondent about himself from the first, not caring very much whether he
lived or died, now that he was so mutilated, for how was he to get his
living without a right-hand? He asked. It was in vain that Kavanagh
assured him that he could do very well in the Corps of Commissionaires;
he had not been very steady in the early part of his soldiering career,
and his name had several entries against it in the Regimental
Defaulters' Book, which he was convinced would tell fatally against his
chances.

Suddenly he flung up his left arm, the right being in a sling, and gave
a deep gasp, collapsing in his seat, and falling up against his
companion. All his doubts and difficulties about the future were
solved, poor fellow! For he was shot through the heart. Presently a
camel was wounded, and sank down, groaning pitifully, if pity could have
been spared for it, but most of that was absorbed by the soldier,
suffering grievously from dysentery, whom he carried, and who was now
thrown violently to the ground. A halt was necessary while he was
otherwise accommodated, and the covering party pushed close up to the
shrubby ground, taking advantage of the mimosas in their turn, and
inflicting some loss on the enemy, who seemed now to have quite altered
their former tactics, and to prefer distant to close quarters. When the
convoy moved on again they closed upon it once more, ready to run up to
it at