Then he said: "I must have a tot. I wonder whether the men have any left." I was just promising to inquire when he exclaimed excitedly: "Look there!" And lo and behold, a man stepped out of the ranks, then standing easy, and took from his haversack a bottle containing something that looked like rum. He poured some into a pannikin, poured in some water and drank it off. "By heavens," said the old colonel, "I've struck oil." Just then I called the men to "attention," and as we went down the ranks inspecting the colonel kept saying: "Deuced bad pain in my stomach." As we got opposite the man with the bottle--he was, by the way, the most temperate man in the corps--the colonel's groans became heart-rending. The man thereupon brought out the bottle from his haversack, and said to him: "Do you think this would do you any good, sir?" The colonel's face was wreathed in smiles. "Aha, my man, just what I wanted," he exclaimed. "Give me your pannikin." And he proceeded to pour out for himself a strong "tot." "Be careful, sir," said the man, "it's very strong." "Ah!" said the colonel, "when you're as old a soldier as I am you'll be able to take your 'tot' neat." And with that he tossed it down. The change that came over his face was marvellous! The smiles were replaced by a look of agonised surprise. He coughed and spluttered, and ejaculated: "Shoot the blackguard; he's poisoned me!" Then he rushed to the creek and drank more water in ten minutes than he had drunk in the ten previous years. "What have you given the colonel?" I asked the man. "Perry & Davis's Pain-killer," he replied. "Will you try some, sir?" I put my tongue to the mouth of the bottle and then said, "No, I'm blowed if I do." For the stuff was like liquid fire, and was hot enough to burn the entrails out of a brass monkey, and if applied externally would have blistered the halo from a plaster saint. It also claimed to cure everything. In that it lied, for it did not cure the colonel's propensity for ration rum, although I must admit it made him very careful for some time to sample his tot before he swallowed it. CHAPTER XII LOST IN THE NEW ZEALAND BUSH