; I think Kavanagh would have been satisfied, though he
has been disappointed in his desire to wield the lash himself. Don't
you remember?"

"Well, all you have got to do now," said Strachan to Kavanagh, "is to
get back to England as quick as they will take you, purchase your
discharge, and enjoy your _otium cum dignitate_."

"Thank you, sir; if you will kindly say a word for me it will help,"
replied Kavanagh.

The little word _sir_ struck with strange harshness on Harry Forsyth's
ears. But, of course, Kavanagh was but a full private, and Strachan was
an officer, if he came to think and realise it. He had been about to
say:

"Here we three chums have met at last, ever so many miles up the Nile,
and I shall believe in presentiments as long as I live;" but he did not
like, after that word _sir_, to class his two old friends in the same
category; it might make an awkwardness, he felt.

"I do not like the idea of quitting the service altogether," said
Kavanagh.

"If we have this war with Russia they talk about, and I get well in
time, and can qualify, I wonder if I shall have a chance of getting a
commission. Surely it will not be so difficult as it was when I tried
before, and I nearly qualified. I wonder whether my service in the
ranks would be allowed to count in any way."

"It very well might," said Strachan; "for there are all sorts of chances
going when good men are really wanted. If not, you must go back into
the old Militia Battalion of the Blankshire, as I mean to do when I am
shelved; and then we shall get a chance of airing our medals, if they
give us any, for one month in the year at any rate."

"And what are your wounds, Kavanagh?" asked Harry presently.

"Sword cuts; one in the body is troublesome, but is getting better since
I got away from camel back, though sometimes I feel down-hearted,
progress is so slow."

"Oh, you must not give way to that sort of feeling," said Forsyth.
"Why, I lay senseless for months and months from a cut on the head; how
long I have no idea yet; I shall have to puzzle it out some day, but at
present it is logarithms over again to think of it. I should certainly
have died if it had not been for my dear old black nurse, Fatima, the
loss of whom is the only thing I shall regret in leaving this part of
the world. And if ever I come back, it will be to hunt her out and buy
her."

"Fatima! Come, now for a touch of romance, Harry!" cried Strachan,
laughing.

"Bl