For Fortune and Glory: A Story of the Soudan War

by Lewis Hough

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

  AN UNEXPECTED MEETING.

  Gradually Harry Forsyth came back to real life, as it were. First ofall he had an uneasy feeling that something was wrong, but he wanted aword or an event to strike the key-note of his memory. His uncle neverspoke of home matters; he was kind, and even affectionate, but was muchaway. He would come out into the large courtyard in the early morning,mount the horse which was held ready for him with an activity worthy ofa much younger man, and scour off at a gallop with a troop of his wildretainers racing behind him. He might come back that evening, or notfor a week.

  And when he was at home he was very busy, seeing different people, whocame and went in a great hurry, and writing despatches, which mountedorderlies, or what answered for such, were always in waiting to carry.And when they were together he talked of the wild life of the desert; ofthe sport to be had further up in the Black Country, but never ofEngland.

  He spoke Arabic always, even when they were alone, and never lapsed intohis native tongue. Yet his face and the tone of his voice disturbedHarry, causing him to make an effort to get his mind clear.

  At length, one morning he awoke with a distinct remembrance of hismother and sister, and the knowledge that he was far away from them in aforeign land, and had not had any communication with them for a longtime. And he felt a strong desire to relieve their anxiety, and letthem know he was alive, and also to have news of them. But he could notremember what he had come to this part of the world for.

  He knew that he had wanted to trace his uncle; but why? He had come outto Egypt in the service of a firm of merchants, and the name of the headof it was Williams; he was confident so far. But had he not returnedhome since then? And why had he sought out his uncle? Surely not onbusiness connected with the firm, and certainly not because he hadturned Mohammedan and wanted to live like an ostrich.

  A little longer, and his connection with Hicks Pasha's force, and thedisastrous termination of that expedition, came clearly back to him; andwith it the necessity of keeping silent about the matter, for he nowwanted to get away to a civilised place like Cairo, at all events, ifnot to England. For though he did not know that the British Governmenthad taken up the Egyptian quarrel, and that war had actually been wagedbetween them and the Soudanese in the neighbourhood of the Red Sea, heknew that an officer of the late expedition would be looked upon withsuspicion, if not treated as an open enemy.

  Neither was he sure how his uncle would bear the disappointment if hefound out that he had been in the ranks of his enemies--the Egyptians.Though he need not have worried himself about that, for the SheikhBurrachee would only have thought it the method which Destiny had takento bring him to him.

  As Forsyth's mind grew sounder his body kept pace with it, and he wasable at last to mount a horse and take short rides; and it amused him tosaunter about the bazaar occasionally, though it was not a veryextensive or grand one; indeed, the poet who wrote "Man wants but littlehere below," would have been pleased to see how completely an Arab, as arule, verifies his theory.

  One day he, (Harry, not the poet) was puzzled by some round balls of afrothy appearance, which he could not make out; could it possibly besoap? What sale could there be for such an article? The shopman mightjust as well have offered straps and stay-laces to the population aroundhim. But it did not smell like soap, either; indeed, the odour wasextremely unpleasant.

  "That is not an object worthy of your attention," said the owner of theshop, who sat on a cushion in the midst of his goods. "I have apreparation for the hair which is infallible for restoring it if itfalls off from age or sickness, for example, and which is as agreeableto the nose as beneficial to the scalp. Those balls of mutton fat areonly fit for the poor who can afford no better."

  "Oh, it is for the hair, then," observed Harry; "and what makes it lookall frothy like that?"

  "It is prepared by chewing, and women are employed for the purpose; theycheat me sometimes, and swallow a portion. But deign to come up, ohillustrious one, and partake of a cup of coffee or a glass of sherbetand a chibouque, and allow me the unparalleled and illustrious honour ofshowing you my poor goods."

  Harry consented, not that he wanted to purchase anything, but becausesomething about the man's face struck him as familiar, and he wasanxious to remember where and under what circumstances he had seen himbefore.

  "I have here a French pistol, a revolver with six chambers, which I canoffer your Excellency almost for nothing, with ammunition to match. Itis a weapon which will save your life a hundred times by its accuracyand the rapidity of its fire; and what says the wise man? `Life issweet, even to the bravest.'" And all the time he was talking, HarryForsyth kept thinking, "Where have I seen him? What circumstance doeshis face recall?"

  As he left the shop his eye fell on a bale of goods yet unopened, and onit he read the name *Daireh*!

  It acted like a match on a gas-jet. He had come out to seek the will,and Daireh was the man who had abstracted it!

  And as he walked home, he remembered everything which had been a puzzleto him. Being still weak, he now grew as much excited as before he hadbeen apathetic, and had his uncle been at home he would have gone to himwith the whole story at once. But the sheikh was away, superintendingthe drill of certain European ruffians in the Mahdi's service who wereto man some Krupp guns taken from the Egyptians, and Harry had a forcedrespite in which to collect his ideas and frame them in the manner bestcalculated to gain his uncle's attention and assistance.

  And now his anxiety about those at home who had no doubt long mournedhim as dead grew more poignant, and remembering his uncle's affectionfor his sister, he regretted not having confided in him and begged himto get a letter conveyed to some point sufficiently civilised to have apost. He tried to find out from Fatima how long he had been laid up atthe fakir's residence, and at first she was puzzled. But at last shegave him a clue.

  "The Nile had risen and gone back," she said, "when you were brought tous as dead. It rose again, and fell again, and now it will soon riseonce more."

  Two years! Was it possible? Nearly two years! And he wondered whetherhis people had gone into mourning for him, or if they still hoped on.He next made inquiries about Daireh, setting Fatima to gossip for himand tell him the result. He seemed to bear a shockingly bad character,and to be very unpopular. The fact was that he was a money-lender, andhis extortions caused him to be hated.

  Harry was glad of this, since it promised to make his task easier.

  The Sheikh Burrachee returned, and was rejoiced to find his nephew somuch improved in health.

  Harry took the first opportunity of opening his budget.

  "Do you mind my speaking to you in English?" he said. "I have got tosay things which I should find it difficult to explain in a foreignlanguage, which I have very imperfectly picked up, and which may nothave idioms answering to the English."

  "I do not love the English tongue," said the sheikh, using it, however."But what things do you allude to?"

  "Family matters, affecting my mother and all of us--you, perhaps."

  "When I last went to England," said the sheikh, "I took a final farewellof all relatives, and of everything belonging to the country from whichI shook off the dust on my feet, you only excepted, for I saw that you,too, were called out of the seething hotbed of corruption, which iscalled civilisation, to the natural life of man. Why disturb the ashesof the buried past?"

  "I love my mother," replied Harry; "and you, her brother, once loved hertoo."

  His uncle bowed his head. "True," he said; "speak on."

  "And besides," added Harry, "justice is justice all the world over, andcrime should not prosper. Richard Burke, your brother, died at his homein Ireland. He had made two wills, one leaving the bulk of his fortuneto his step-son, Stephen Philipson, and another, and later one, made onthe occasion of Philipson turning out badly, leaving him a modestallowance, and bequeathing the bulk of his fortune between his sisterand Reginald Kavanag
h. This will, which would make my mother andBeatrice comfortable, as they have been brought up to esteem comfort,was not to be found; neither was the other. A dishonest clerk, forcedto fly the country because a forgery he had committed must soon bediscovered, stole them both out of the lawyer's office where he wasemployed, for the purpose of levying a sum for giving them to one or theother of the parties interested. But the police were too close on histraces, and he had to fly without a chance of making use of eitherdocument. He was an Egyptian, and went home; but not feeling safe atAlexandria or Cairo, and having connections in the Soudan, he came tothis country. If both wills are destroyed, part of the property comesto you."

  "And the cause has need of funds!" exclaimed the sheikh. "But how shallwe find this dog?"

  "I saw him the other day in the bazaar; his name is Daireh."

  "Daireh, the money-lender, against whom I have had so many complaints,but who always manages to have the law on his side?"

  "The very same."

  The Sheikh Burrachee clapped his hands; an attendant came. "Bringhither Daireh, the Egyptian usurer," said the sheikh; "and keep himguarded in the outer court."

  The Arab inclined his head and departed without a word.

  It may seem to you that Harry Forsyth had recovered his wits veryrapidly, and this, indeed, was the case. Up to a certain point hisprogress had been very slow, but that once passed he had come to himselfalmost at a bound. But as for his clear statement to his uncle, that hehad prepared beforehand with great care, writing it out and learning itby heart, feeling that it was necessary to be as concise as possible.

  A thoughtful expression came over the Sheikh Burrachee's face, quitedifferent from the wild faraway look which now ordinarily characterisedit.

  "And so Richard is dead," he murmured to himself; "and Mary has knownpoverty in a land where there is no kindness for the poor; where all ishard and cold, and people can no longer love or even hate. And thisfellow has robbed her. By my beard he shall smart for it!"

  When the sheikh swore by his beard the matter was serious, and if Dairehhad heard him he would not have walked along between the guards whoarrested him with so impudent an air. He had so often been had up, andhad got the best of his accusers, that he felt quite safe. For he knewwell the customs which had the force of laws in the country, and tookcare not to violate them, though straining every point to his advantage.And the Sheikh Burrachee was just, and however much he might sympathisewith the complainant, would not allow his judgment to be affected by hisfeelings.

  It was indeed a rough-and-ready justice, not always consistent, and suchas would not meet entire approval from any civilised persons; he went onthe principle that when he could not do what he would, he did what hecould, to set things straight according to his judgment and the evidencebefore him, adopting the habits of the people with whom he hadidentified himself, who had not the horror of physical pain--forothers--or the employment of it to elicit truth, which we have.

  He rose from the divan by the garden where he had been sitting withHarry, and, beckoning to the latter to follow him, proceeded to theouter and larger hall, where he took his seat, with his nephew at hisside. And hardly had he done so when Daireh was brought in. Hesalaamed with a confident air, which expressed, "Who will find metripping? It would take a clever fellow to do that. They are willingenough to agree to my terms when they want to borrow, but when I claimmy own, there is all this bother and outcry, and I am dragged before thesheikh forsooth!"

  But he looked more serious when the Sheikh Burrachee said to him--

  "Daireh, where are the two wills you stole from Burrows and Fagan, theDublin lawyers, when you ran away from their employ?"

  Surely such an incongruous question was never put in an Arab town in theheart of Africa by a sheikh dressed in bernouse and turban, with ajewel-hilted yataghan at his side, sitting cross-legged on a cushion.No wonder Daireh was flabbergasted; such a thunderbolt out of a clearsky has seldom fallen upon any man.

  "Your Mightiness is mistaken," he stammered. "I have lived, earning anhonest livelihood as a poor merchant, at Khartoum and Berber, Alexandriaand Cairo. But what is Dublin? I know it not."

  "Is that your photograph?" asked Harry Forsyth, suddenly, in English.

  "No!" replied Daireh, startled into answering in the same language; andthe moment he did so he could have bitten his tongue out for vexation.

  The sheikh took the likeness in his hand; it was unmistakable.

  "Here is your portrait, and it was taken in Dublin, for it bears thatname upon it. Also you know English," he said.

  "I learned that language at Alexandria," replied Daireh, more firmly nowhe had collected his wits; "and I had a brother very like me who wentbeyond the seas, and may have lived in the place you speak of, for Inever heard of him again."

  "You speak the words of Sheytan, the father of lies," said the sheikhsternly; "where are the stolen documents?"

  "I never heard of them, your Justice; and I know not what you mean,"replied Daireh, striving, but with indifferent success, not to tremble.

  "Hassan!" called the sheikh, and a tall, stalwart black stepped forward,with a courbash in his hand. "Twenty lashes to refresh his memory."

  "Mercy, great sheikh; oh, favourite of Allah, have mercy, and listen tome!" cried the wretch; but without heeding his cries four men seized himand flung him on the ground face downwards. Two held his legs, one hisarms, and a third put a knee on his back between the shoulder-blades tokeep him in position. It was all done in a twinkling.

  Then Hassan stepped up, courbash in hand, and measured his distance.The courbash is a fearful whip made of hippopotamus' hide, a stroke fromwhich is felt by a bullock as painfully as a cut from an ordinary whipis by a horse.

  It whistled through the air, and came down upon the naked flesh of thevictim, who screamed with the pain as if he would break a blood-vessel.The wild men in the hall gathered round, their eyes sparkling and theirteeth gleaming with enjoyment and laughter. It was good fun to them tosee any one flogged, but a money-lender and extortioner, that thepunishment should fall upon such an one, was indeed a treat! And Dairehtoo was particularly disliked. Then the currish way in which he tookhis licking added to the sport. The little civilisation they had wasvery superficial, and did not go nearly deep enough to repress theinstinct of cruelty.

  Another and another lash, and the fellow's howls, yells, and cries forpity were hardly human, but seemed rather those of some powerful spiritin pain. Harry felt quite faint and sick, and looked down so as not tosee what was going on. But he could not close his ears, unfortunately,and he counted the strokes, longing for them to be over. He fearedbeing mastered by his feelings, and pleading for the wretch, sodisplaying a compassion which would be considered by the Arabs as a mostdespicable weakness, and it was part of his plan now to gain theirrespect, and appear to enter into his uncle's plans.

  No, it served the rascal right; let him have that, and more too. Onlyhe had rather not be present. Eighteen, nineteen, twenty. The screamssubsided into a whimpering and wailing, and when Harry looked up he sawDaireh on his feet again, his eyes bloodshot, and his features convulsedwith pain and terror.

  "Where are the wills you stole?" asked the Sheikh Burrachee,unconcernedly, as if nothing had occurred since he last put thequestion.

  "They are at my house, your Mightiness; send some one with me, and Iwill give them up."

  "I rejoice that your memory has returned; it is one of the choicestgifts of Allah," said the sheikh. "Go with him and get the papers, andbring them back with the prisoner."

  "A bad speculation from the first!" reflected Daireh, as he was escortedthrough the streets, his woe-begone appearance and gingerly gaitexciting much mirth and mockery amongst the juvenile population. "Iwish I had left the accursed wills alone. And what son of Sheytan isthis who has traced them, and had my likeness in his pocket? Adetective? No; no English policeman would win upon this mad fool of asheikh--may the vultures tear his heart out
while he is still alive--totreat him like a son. He must be one of the parties interested in thelast will. What wretched luck that I did not meet him in a fair way,and make a proper agreement with him! But it is too late for that now.If I could only be revenged upon him, upon all of them--sheikh,torturer, mocking demons, and all! Ugh, how sore I am! If it were butall over! But I fear they may torment me further. I had almost soonerthey took my head off at once rather than put me to more of that agony.But no; I hope they won't do that either. There is a remedy for everyevil but death." With these reflections, fears, and impotent ragestormenting him, Daireh reached his house, and from a box, whichcontained what he had of most value, produced the required documentswhich had cost Harry Forsyth so much anxiety, toil, and suffering tocome at. He was strongly tempted to destroy them, and so glean somelittle vengeance; but the certainty of perishing in fearful pain if hedid so deterred him, and when he was brought back, he delivered them tothe sheikh, wrapped in the oilskin in which he had carried them abouthim until he had a fixed residence where he could deposit them intolerable security.

  "Are these the right wills?" asked the Sheikh Burrachee, handing them toHarry.

  "I think so," replied the latter, as he looked them over and examinedthe signatures; "indeed, I feel certain that they are."

  "Then," said the sheikh, "since after all it was but infidels, and nottrue believers, that this rascal robbed, the justice of the case willperhaps be met by fifty lashes of the courbash, those he has alreadyreceived being allowed to count. Dog!" he added, indignantly, asDaireh, flinging himself on the ground, wallowed, gasping and crying formercy, "tempt me not, if you are wise, to treat you according to yourdeserts, but know that you are treated with extreme leniency."

  And so saying he rose and withdrew to the inner garden court, whitherhis nephew gladly followed him, and here they refreshed themselves withpipes and coffee.

  But the screams of the miserable felon told with what energy Hassan wasperforming his duty, and Harry thought the punishment would never beover. If it seemed long to him, you may be certain Daireh thought it anage, and indeed he believed that mortal endurance had reached the acmeof suffering, and that one more stroke must drive the soul from thebody, some time before the last had cut into his palpitating flesh.

  But it takes a good deal to kill, and when all was over he was alive,though unable to stand, and when spurned from the courtyard into thestreet, managed to crawl and drag himself home, where he obtained thedraught of water, the want of which had been his chief torment since thestripes ended.

  "And now we have recovered the will, uncle, how are we to send it to mymother?" asked Harry when the distracting cries extracted by thecourbash had ceased. "The old one I will destroy, as should have beendone before. The money will add to her comfort, but news that I amalive and with you will make her happier still."

  This last was a skilful touch, and, I fear, Harry was becoming a bit ofa cheat. For, though tidings of her son's own safety would undoubtedlybe the best news Mrs Forsyth could receive, the fact that he wasdomiciled with her crazy brother would as certainly not add to hersatisfaction.

  "Keep it safely for the present," said the sheikh, after smoking sometime in thoughtful deliberation; "we shall find a method of transmittingit. Great events will occur soon. The authority of the Mahdi beingestablished in the Soudan, we shall sweep Egypt like the simoom, andCairo and Alexandria once in our hands, we shall find no difficulty incommunicating with Europe. Or, perhaps, it may be done more quickly bySuakim, should the forces of the Mahdi's lieutenant, Osman Digna,recover from their check," he added, musing and thinking aloud ratherthan addressing his nephew.

  Harry longed to ask what check, but it was part of his newly-formedsystem not to ask questions or show curiosity, but yield himselfpassively to the course of events, and watch his opportunity. For thesame reason he would not propose taking the will home himself, feelingcertain that so obvious a course would be suggested by his uncle himselfif he could feel it was practicable. But it was evident what he wasdriving at now; as his nephew picked up health and strength he beganasking him about his connection with the volunteers, and whether he hadpaid attention to the theory as well as the practice of shooting.

  And though Harry pretended not to understand, and parried the questionsas well as he could, he saw very well that he wanted him to take anactive part in the training of Soudanese soldiers in the use of theRemington rifles which had fallen into their hands.

  For never in the history of war had a nation been armed so completely byits enemies. The Egyptians sent out armies with weapons of precisionand improved artillery, and they fortified towns, where they massed vaststores of ammunition, suited to both rifles and guns. The soldiers ofthe Mahdi rushed upon their feeble foes with sword and spear, totallyannihilated army after army, and collected the rifles. Then they tookthe towns and possessed themselves of the cartridges. Napoleon theGreat used to say that war should support war; but this was going a stepfurther, and making war supply the means of waging war. The onlydrawback was this, that the more elaborate the weapons which you putinto a soldier's hands, the more skill he requires to use themeffectively; and this skill can only be acquired by proper training.

  But the Mahdi had never taken the precaution to send any officers toHythe, and amongst the miraculous powers which he was said by some ofhis followers to possess, that of creating ready-made musketryinstructors was apparently not included. The consequence was that hismen were extremely bad shots, and wasted their ammunition in an almostincredible manner. What mischief they were enabled to do, especiallywith the artillery, was principally owing to the lessons they receivedfrom European scoundrels who had been forced to fly from their owncountries by their crimes, or reckless adventurers who did not care forcause, nationality, or anything else, so long as they were wherefighting and a chance of plunder was going on--men who would have mademost excellent mediaeval heroes, and would have had a good chance ofliving in song and story had they not been born a few centuries toolate.

  Amongst all these the Sheikh Burrachee was an exception. He was agenuine crack-brained enthusiast, sane and even shrewd enough in manythings, but quite crazy upon certain points. Convinced, to begin with,that it was the duty of every Irishman to hate the English, he hadimaginary private wrongs of his own to avenge. On the top of all that,he had become a thorough Mohammedan in his sympathetic feelings andhabits, and quite sincere in his adoption of the cause of the Mahdi.The appearance of England in the field, which would have caused many tohesitate, was a spur to his enthusiasm, since it offered him anopportunity of having it out with the foes of his predilection.

  Harry Forsyth had no idea whatever that England had engaged inhostilities in the Soudan. When he last had any information, she wasfirmly determined to do nothing of the kind, but to let the EgyptianGovernment get out of the difficulty in the best way they could.Indeed, it was the last thing he would have guessed. But still he knewwell enough that English interests were firmly bound up in Egyptian,since any disturbance of the Government at Cairo might endanger theroute to India, and therefore that to assist in any way the enemies ofEgypt was to act indirectly against his own country; and he wasdetermined to be of no use, even if he made believe to espouse the causewhich his uncle had made his own. And this he suspected more and morehe would have to do, if he was to get an opportunity of leaving thecountry.

  His uncle had hinted at an impending advance upon Egypt; if he couldjoin that, and once reach the Nile, surely he would find someopportunity of slipping down the river, and joining the Egyptian troops,who would receive a relic of Hicks Pasha's army with open arms. Then hewould get to Cairo, and find friends to assist him to reach England withthe will in his pocket.

  He did not fear that the Arabs would be able to penetrate far into Egyptproper, for there were probably some English troops still at Cairo, andmore would be sent there on the first intimation of danger. The will,by-the-by, had now taken the place which the parchment given to h
im byhis uncle had formerly held, and he seldom laid it aside, not knowingwhat might happen from day to day.

  His health, meantime, became re-established, and he grew rapidlystronger, while his mind was perfectly clear now. At times, indeed, hehad violent neuralgic headaches, but these recurred less and lessfrequently, and he had every prospect of soon losing all ill effects ofthat wound in his head.

  But the stronger and better he became, the more restless he grew. Theonly amusement he had to pass the time in was riding. He had alwaysbeen very fond of horses, and now he had a good choice, and as the twohe had fancied most had not been often backed, they took some riding;and that was exercise and amusement both. But the bits and the saddleswere not to his fancy: the former too severe; the latter heavy, withhigh peaks before and behind. But one cannot have everything, and hewas grateful to be able once more to sit a horse and enjoy a gallop atall. And to watch the wild cavalry at their exercises on a broad plainoutside the town was a pretty sight, though it seemed to him that theirperformances were too much of the circus order.

  "Can the English dragoons or hussars do anything like that?" the SheikhBurrachee asked him one day, when they were together watching a body ofhorsemen who were supposed to be skirmishing.

  They pulled up their horses to a dead halt from a gallop with theircruel bits; went, not over the head, as it seemed they must, but underthe body of the animal; fired a shot from that position, and remountedanyhow--one by the neck, another over the tail; a third ran alongsidehis horse for some way, using him as cover, and then vaulted on his backwithout checking the pace.

  Harry was bound to confess that, to the best of his belief, no Britishregiment, light or heavy, could rival such equestrian gymnastics.

  "No," said the sheikh; "they learn to stick on while the horse keeps hisfooting, but these cannot be thrown; for should the horse fall, even, hejumps at once to the ground."

  "But surely he must reach it head or shoulder first sometimes," objectedHarry.

  "No," replied his uncle; "he turns a somersault and alights on his feet.The European is as far behind the Asiatic in horsemanship as ineverything else which is manly and not demoniac. The use of the sword,for example. The dragoon has a straight weapon, with which he is taughtto cut or thrust. If he does the former, and the blow is not parried,he may knock his opponent down, but he seldom inflicts a dangerouswound. If he gives point, he may kill his man indeed, but his weaponwill often become so entangled that he is for some time unable to freeit, and he remains defenceless against another attack. But with hiscurved blade of temper, which will not shiver and which takes a razor'sedge, the warrior of the East neither strikes nor gives point, butpresents the half-moon-shaped sword at his opponent, holding it still ifgalloping, pushing it forward if motionless, and will so slice off limbor head, or cut deep into the body, without useless expenditure ofstrength, or the chance of losing even the momentary control of hisweapon. I have seen an Arab meet an enemy in full career, and slice hishead clean off in this way, with hardly a perceptible movement of thearm."

  Having no knowledge on this subject, Harry assented without any mentalreserve; but concerning the military utility of acrobatic equestrianperformances, or of their being available at all in the hunting field,he entertained the very gravest doubt. But they were good fun to watch,for all that, and one, that of vaulting into the saddle while the horsewas in motion, he practised, and to a certain extent caught the knack.He also went in for throwing the spear, which the natives could do forten yards or so with great force and accuracy; and though he did notmake very good practice, it proved an excellent exercise for his musclesafter his long confinement.

  The Sheikh Burrachee was delighted to see how his nephew took to thesemartial exercises, and at last he put the question to him point-blank,whether he would not assist in teaching some of the men the use of theRemington rifles they had captured.

  Harry, having thought over the best course to pursue in such acontingency, consented with apparent alacrity, but said that he hopedhis shortcomings would be excused. His uncle, not knowing how much thathope covered, replied that he must not take the Kor Dofan for Wimbledon,and the most elementary instruction would be esteemed extremelyscientific.

  So the very next day Harry found himself with a squad of five hundredmen to instruct.

  "Delightful task, to rear the tender root--to teach five hundred Arabshow to shoot!" he said to himself, when the lot were handed over to him.There was one consolation: do what he would, his instructions to solarge a number, without assistance, could not avail much: but he wantedto do nothing at all.

  His uncle was not present; he had no one to check him, able to judgewhether his instruction was good or bad. So he stuck some stones up forbutts, at about twelve hundred yards, and set them all firing at them.He judged that by this he would in the first place accustom them tofiring at a comparatively innocuous distance; and in the second, thatthey would waste a good deal of ammunition.

  "His honour rooted in dishonour stood; And faith unfaithful kept him falsely true,"

  in the words of Tennyson's famous conundrum.