bit of pluck,
too, it seems to me."

"Not so much as you think," replied Kavanagh, meditatively. "I do not
say it out of mock modesty, but it is a simple fact that fear of that
sharp edge made me strain all my faculties to keep it at a distance.
But I was horribly afraid of it all the same."

"Well, I suppose that the other was afraid of your bayonet point, if you
come to that."

"I don't believe it; he did not mind it more than a pin, if he could
only kill me at the same time."

Here an officer came up and asked Kavanagh how he was; adding, "I have
good news for you. We shall reach Korti to-day, and then you will be
more comfortable."

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.

IN THE RANKS OF THE ENEMY.

Harry Forsyth had put off the evil day as long as he could, but at
length he found himself forced to turn an apparent traitor to his Queen
and country, or else to give up the object of his journey when his
trials, dangers, and sufferings had been crowned with success, and
probably to lose his life into the bargain.

The detachment in which the Sheikh Burrachee held a command came to a
precipitous rocky mountain overlooking the Nile, and here they were to
stop the English advance. No position could have been more judiciously
chosen: the rocks looked down on a narrow gorge of the river still more
straightened by an island named Dulka, which it was determined to
garrison strongly with riflemen, and there was debate as to who should
undertake this duty. Harry hoped that it would be the tribe with which
his uncle had become associated, and of which he himself was now
supposed to be a member, because he thought it would be hardly difficult
to slip away down the stream somehow, by swimming if no other means were
to be had, and so join the English before they attacked, and avoid even
the appearance of being a partaker of his uncle's crimes. But this
chance was denied to him, and others went to the island, while the
Sheikh Burrachee and his men were posted in the steepest part, the very
citadel of this natural fortress.

To escape from there before the assault was obviously impossible. Up to
that time Harry had taken it for granted in his own mind that his
countrymen would carry any position they chose, with more or less loss,
and pass on, but he now began to fear that this one was really
impregnable. Parts of it were difficult to climb if unopposed, but with
an enemy with a rifle in his hand behind every crag and boulder,