So when the Egyptian was placed on the
Nile the hippopotamus was created to provide whips to rule him with.
But you must tell your story at greater length to-morrow morning to a
friend of mine who is lying wounded here, waiting for a chance to be
transported to Cairo. For I have a lot of things to see to; reports to
make out--you would never believe; and must run away presently."

Next morning Harry Forsyth called on Strachan at the time and place
appointed, and was taken by him to the hospital which had been
established near the banks of the river. They found the friend of
Strachan's they proposed to visit lying on a bamboo couch under an
awning, over which again spread a palm-tree. There was a pleasant view
of the river and the country, and altogether it was as cheery a spot as
could have been selected.

There was a visitor already with the invalid: a soldier who was standing
near, his head leaning on his rifle.

"I tell ye what it is," he was saying; "I'll say nothing about flesh
wounds and bullet wounds since it worries ye, but ye have the best luck
of it to be wounded at all, in my thinking. Won't ye be getting out of
this baste of a country at once, and shan't we poor beggars what's whole
and sound have to stop here and stew, and be ate up with the flies
entirely? I tell ye so long as ye aint crippled it's the best chance to
be a bit hurt, and get away, now there's no more fighting to be done.
And they say there will perhaps be some real fun going on in India, out
Afghanistan way, against the Rooshians; and we will be left here with
the flies and crocodiles. But here's the officer coming. I'll come and
see you again, when I'm off duty."

And Grady stepped briskly away, making the sling of his rifle _tell_
with a smart salute, as he passed Strachan. And then Harry Forsyth
stepped up to the couch, and found himself looking on the drawn and
pain-worn features of Reginald Kavanagh.

"I flatter myself that I have managed that with considerable dramatic
talent," said Tom Strachan, as he stood looking at the two, holding each
other's hands in silence, and looking into each other's eyes.

"Yes," said Harry Forsyth, answering the question in the other's look;
"I have found it, and it is here in my breast, all perfectly right."

"Yes, he has found it," echoed Strachan. "Where there's a will there's
a way, and the way in this instance was the kourbash. I hope the fellow
got it hot, Harry."

"Pretty fairly