formed here, possibly because
troops could not be spared to guard it, or the spot was considered too
near the next wells, or there was good reason to know that there was no
force of the enemy of any consequence in the neighbourhood. Whether it
was the cause or not, this latter fact was probably the case, but there
were individual sharp-shooters about who were inclined to make
themselves a nuisance.

Perched high up among fantastic blocks of stone, which would have
tempted an artist to draw out his sketch-book, they got excellent shots
at the party below them, and as there was no chance of a return, they
being entirely concealed, and their presence merely indicated by the
little puffs of white smoke which spurted out here and there, there was
nothing to disturb their aim. For nothing spoils a rifleman's shooting
like being exposed to accurate fire himself; which was probably the
reason why duellists, who could perform wonders in the shooting gallery,
used so often to miss each other at twelve paces in the days of single
combat, when George the Fourth was Regent.

The range, however, was a long one, and the fire _plunging_, or
perpendicular. Now horizontal fire has this characteristic, that if a
bullet misses one object it goes straight on and may strike another; or
it may pass through a fleshy substance which does not offer too great
resistance, and strike another beyond. But a plunging fire, if it
misses the object aimed at, goes into the ground and is harmless.

And so it happened that no mischief was done for some time, though
several bullets came thudding down in the midst of men and camels. At
length, with the fatality which seemed throughout this campaign to
attend upon non-combatants, a shot struck a poor Egyptian camel driver
on the neck, passing through his spine, and shortly afterwards a surgeon
was wounded in the foot.

There did not seem to be more than two or three riflemen firing at them,
but they were far above the average in marksmanship, and more dangerous,
at a distance, than a score of ordinary soldiers of the Mahdi. Six men,
of whom Kavanagh was one, were told off to dislodge them; not more,
because they would certainly retire before a strong body, and return,
when they withdrew from the pursuit, to their former positions and
practice. Indeed, the officer who went with the six thought that number
too numerous to show, and advanced in front with a file only, while the
others had orders to cr