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far side of a clearing full of crops, but exactly how many of him was difficult to say. A large baobab among the trees beyond the clearing attracted Smith's attention, as he fancied he saw something moving in it; so he turned a few rifles on to it. Baobabs are always worth a little attention in bush warfare, for they occasionally grow quaint fruit in the shape of snipers and sometimes machine-guns.

Ward came running up to where Smith was standing behind a tree busy with his glasses.

"What do you make of it?" he asked. "Is this where they stopped you yesterday?"

"No; we were stopped a bit farther back, and didn't reach this clearing. Judging by the fire, I should say they've got forty or fifty men there. If we're going to turn them out, we ought to do it quick, or they'll be getting up supports from Kigomani."

"I'm going to have a biff now. There's goodish cover leading up on the left, so just slip back and get hold of the right half 'F,' and see if you can get round and shift them. You may be able to get on to the Kigomani track again behind them. I'll go across the clearing and hold them, so as to give you a chance of getting round unnoticed. Tell the M.G. detachment to come into action on my right, just where Sultan Ali is. They'll be able to comb out anything that shows in the trees, besides getting an oblique fire."

Smith doubled away, and Ward continued watching the enemy's position, from which a fairly incessant though not excessively heavy fire continued to come. One of the scouts was being carried off, shot through the thigh. As far as Ward could make out, the enemy appeared to be about 450 yards off; but distances in crops are deceptive.

Some of the scouts were already

worming their way forward supported by the fire of the advanced guard strung out in line. Presently the remainder of the company came up and spread out to join them, and Ward gave the order to advance just as the machine-gun began to spit away on his right. As the advance began, the enemy's fire increased, but it was not very accurate, and on the left where Smith had gone things seemed quite quiet.

As they advanced, however, the fire grew steadily heavier. Apparently the enemy were being reinforced. Also, ominous sign, away on the left burst out the sudden rattle of a machine-gun.

The line, checked for the moment by the now really heavy fire, stopped and blazed away merrily at the thicker growth ahead, whence the growing volume of fire, the continuous droning in the air, and the "whit, whip" among the maize stalks, with now and then the dull "plunk" as a bullet found something which, though compared to the grass of the field, is not exactly maize stalks, showed that the enemy was in force.

"Looks as if Brer Boche is in strength this morning," thought Ward, as he called up the supporting section. "Hope Smith's not in trouble."

He was kneeling down in the crops adjuring various chump-headed Punjabis to shoot straight, when an orderly came tearing up to him with a note from Smith.

Enemy about 100 strong in front with a M.G. Can't get on any farther without help. Have several men hit. Am about 200 yards from the enemy, who, I think, are being reinforced.

As he read the scrawl, a still heavier burst of fire all along his line, followed by the unmistakable rattle of one, if not two machine-guns to the right of his line, told him that the foe were decidedly superior. He saw the stretcher party

with their hands more than full, and his words to Smith the previous evening came back, "Unless you're nippy you're for it proper."

Nothing further was to be gained by pressing the attack, which would be foredoomed to failure, for the enemy was in much greater strengthso now for the ticklish part of the proceedings, having twisted the leopard's tail, to get out of reach quickly. As he pulled out his notebook, a nasty blow on the shoulder nearly knocked him over backwards. "Stopped one this time. . . . No! that was luck; a dud of sorts, perhaps came through a tree," for barring the broken skin and the rapidly swelling flesh, there seemed to be no harm done.

He scribbled a couple of lines to Smith:

Time to go now. You will fall back at once and get across the path behind Pass up word when you're there, and then we'll come through you, and you follow us as rear-guard.

us.

He dispatched the note, and passing word down the line to open as heavy a fire as possible, told the machine-gun detachment to sweep the bush on the left front where a certain amount of movement showed.

Ten minutes later word reached him that Smith had got into position behind him, and he fell back in orderly fashion. The enemy's fire redoubled in volume, but luckily only a couple of men were hit, and they quickly passed through Smith's line.

"Belt it into 'em if they follow," called Ward to Smith as he passed. "Right-O. There's a few of them coming on now, I think."

"Try and hold them off for a few minutes until we get well started, and then follow us," and Ward hurried on after his men.

A few minutes saw the column col

lected and swinging down the track to the river, the wounded having been sent on in front. Behind him Ward could hear the firing getting heavy, and presently a panting orderly dashed up with another message from Smith:

Enemy pretty close on me now. Can you halt a few men to support me and scare them off?

Ward halted two sections and the machine-gun on the far side of a ravine, and, sending on the rest of the double company, stopped for Smith to catch up.

A minute or two later the first of Smith's command appeared, doubling towards them, and the firing drew Then more of them emerged from the edge of the bush beyond the ravine, and bullets began to buzz about the place.

nearer.

Ward counted the men, thirty-seven so far; there could only be half a dozen more at most, and Smith himself, who would be sure to be at the tail. Yes, there he was. Ward just caught a glimpse of him in the bush with a few men, and almost at the same time the first of the pursuers came into view.

Why didn't the silly old bird buck up and bolt across the ravine? The enemy couldn't be fifty yards from him now. Surely he could see Ward and his men. He shouted to the machine-gunners to open on the enemy quickly, and as he shouted the order, he saw Smith collapse into the bushes, and a new wave of the enemy burst forward.

"Maro! Maro jaldi!" he yelled as he saw three of the remaining four men with Smith, who were trying to pick him up, go down one after another. The enemy halted at the burst of fire from Ward's party, but from the extent of their front it was obvious that they were in considerable strength.

Ward thought of a bayonet charge

to rescue Smith, but as the idea crossed his mind, he saw the last man with Smith turn and leave him, and come rushing across the ravine with bullets chipping the trees and kicking up the dust all round, while the enemy surged forward to the spot where Smith lay. As the man drew near he saw it was Smith's orderly. He came up with stony face and held out a revolver, while in short staccato phrases he announced that the sahib was dead with three bullets in him, that he and the others had tried to get him away, but that the others had been knocked out, and so he had to content himself with bringing away the sahib's revolver, and the place was thick with enemy.

"It is, undoubtedly," reflected Ward as the fire grew still heavier in front and began to spread round the flanks.

Hard as it was to go, it was quite clear that unless they went quickly they would not go at all, and the double company would be minus both its officers and its machine-gun. So he set his teeth, and with a final burst of fire into the spot where all that was left of Smith lay, he reluctantly gave the order to fall back

once more.

Followed a nightmare of a march for close on three miles, perpetually halting to threaten the pursuers, once even compelled to a bayonet charge against an enterprising party who tried to outflank them, until weary and dejected they reached the river and found the bulk of the company lining the farther bank.

Ward crossed with the last of his men, breast-deep in the running water. The man in front of him stuck as he tried to get up the steep bank just as the first of the pursuers' bullets began to sing across the river. Ward hastily shoveled him up the bank, and as he did so felt something slip LIVING AGE, VOL. VIII, No. 372.

off his wet finger, and only as he tumbled over the top of the bank into comparative safety did he realize that Nan's little cameo ring had vanished into the stream.

The enemy spread out along the opposite bank, and a desultory fire opened like the last heavy drops of a passing thunderstorm; but although a certain amount of sniping lasted till well after nightfall, they made no attempt to cross, and next day had evidently withdrawn the bulk of their force.

That morning a message came in from Mirima to say that the operations downstream had been successful, and that the remainder of the regiment would join him next day, as a post was to be established on the river. Until they arrived, he was to content himselt with holding the ford.

As he sat in his dark tent that night it seemed to him as if everything had gone wrong with the world. He had done his job all right (later he learned that so far from the enemy withdrawing men from Kigomani, they had actually started to reinforce it), and he had done it cheaply, all things considered. But the loss of Smith spoiled the whole show-it was such wicked bad luck to get done in in a rotten little side show. Poor old Smith. To have to leave him like that. Thank the Lord, he was dead before the Askaris reached him.

He struck a match to light his pipe, and as he did so noticed the absence of Nan's ring. And that had gone too! Did it mean that everything was going? Was he going to lose her too? If that was so, why the devil hadn't they got him instead of Smith?

Now that the strain of action was over he felt absolutely done up, and though not normally superstitious, he felt tonight as if this was to be the end of everything for him.

He got up and walked out of the tent, out among the sleeping men, and stood looking up at the brilliant stars, seeking in the northern sky one little star which Nan always used to call her star in those days at home, how many centuries ago? He had seen it only the night before last, low on the horizon, and thought that it formed a Blackwood's Magazine.

link between them. Tonight he looked in vain; it had gone, sunk below the formless black mass of this hateful land, which seemed to take everything and give nothing. Nan's star, Nan's ring,-both gone.

He turned and walked back to the tent feeling that everything was black, black, black. (To be concluded.)

Gan pat.

TWO EXILES.

It is not to be supposed that it is through any lack of enterprise or any love of the humdrum life that the Beattie boys are content to follow the patient and secluded calling of the shepherd; nor that Adam, the banker, had shown any special spirit of adventure in going back on the family tradition. For the three remaining brothers-though all are equally devoted to the charge of sheep -are living lives as far removed from one another and amid surroundings as remote as well could be imagined. It is some years now since I received an inquiry from a firm of Liverpool merchants as to whether I could recommend an unmarried shepherd of good experience, willing to undertake the charge of sheep on a small island in the Southern Atlantic. The terms were generous, but the conditions were, I thought, rather severe. For the island, until the arrival of the shepherd in question, was uninhabited, and he was not to expect any visit from the outside world more than twice or three times in the course of the year.

But there was a comfortable hut, and the climate was said to be excellent. It was clearly a case for a Beattie, and I had the good fortune, at a lamb sale at Dalwoodie a week or two later, to find all three brothers together. There we sat on the fence of an empty pen while I brought

out the map that had been sent to me and laid the case before them.

It was clear at once that there was no question of refusing the offer, and the idea of being thus marooned on a little speck in the far waste places of the map did not present itself as a drawback. For a Beattie is only lonely when divorced from his sheep. (Adam must often be lonely, one would say, in the bank!) It was therefore only a question of which of the three should go. Matthew was ruled out as he was a married man, and it was understood in any case that the eldest son belonged to Minnygap. But James and David were free to go.

And so Matthew took two matches from his pocket and broke one of them in half, and they drew lots for it. David drew the broken match, and James became the shepherd of Shaggy Rock. Matthew got down from his perch as soon as the point was settled.

"Ye'll want a guid dog, Jamie lad," said he. "I'm thinkin' I'll need tae let ye tak' wee Tibbie here. She's a terrible wiselike beast."

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lowing" at the close of the lambing and the general state of the stock. There is a good deal of obscure discussion of the incidence and treatment of peculiar diseases that crop up. There is generally some point on which Matthew is advised to consult the vet when next he sees him. (Not that a Beattie ever yet learned anything from a vet; it is purely a matter of form.) And there is always detailed news of the dogs, Tibbie and her descendants and successors. But we have not yet gathered from his letters any idea of Jamie's way of life or frame of mind in that far-distant place. We must suppose that all goes well with him, for there is no word of his coming back.

In one only of his letters had Jamie thrilling news to tell-rather in the spirit of one who, being himself at the heart of things, made haste to enlighten his less fortunate friends living far from the great world in Crashie Howe. For he told how, seated one day on a rock on the heights of his domain, he had witnessed the closing stages of a very famous naval action, far out on the

summer sea.

I do not know if David was disappointed that the lot had not fallen upon him, but it so happened that he also left Crashie Howe, and he also is tending sheep within a little hospitable tract of pasturage, completely surrounded and cut off, far from the friendly marches of neighboring farms. Only he does not live in a hut. He lives in lodgings in a narrow street and goes to and from his work by motor 'bus. David is in sole charge of a flock of Southdowns in a London park.

I think he is the more lonely of the two, and there is a certain just resentment in his mind from which James is wholly free. Shaggy Rock may have its disadvantages, but after all there is

no one to blame. It belongs to the order of things; it carries good pasture for stock; it is essential that there should be sheep upon it, and that implies a shepherd. Jamie's exile is just and inevitable. But David is not surrounded by the harmless sea. He is shut in by London, and London from his point of view is a bad neighbor, needlessly interfering at every turn with the proper freedom and dignity, the comfort, and the unfettered life of sheep. Jamie is as one who has led his community out into the desert, but David is as one cut off, beleaguered by hostile forces. It is bewildering for a dog to work-even one of Tibbie's pups-in a roar of traffic, when he cannot hear his master's voice. On the wildest stretch of Holmfell David has never lost his way, however thick the mist, but he fumbles aimlessly about in a London fog, misled by distracting sounds and voices, bothered by the sameness of park railings. And he is daily distressed and humiliated by the atrocious color of his sheep and the soot that clings to him when he handles them.

Still, I don't think David will give up his job. He is enormously impressed with the quality of the pasturagethere are good sheltering trees and no lack of water. The place would make an incomparable sheep-farm-were it not for London. I fancy him in idle moments dreaming of what it would be if he could get rid of this surrounding incubus, and how he would fashion it to his mind. The railings would give place to a dry-stone dyke. He would build the steading on that little knoll by the gate, cut down those two old oaks for stobs for fencing, and when he had enclosed the corner by the house he would break it up to give him turnips for the winter. The flower-beds could be sown with rape. He would have his dipper above the lake; and he would take a crop of

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