The animal had looked sullen and dull all morning, and in the stable had been assailed by the distemper and its usual symptoms, heaving flanks, disturbed breathing, glassy eyes, and a projecting tongue tightly clenched between the teeth. Then came the convulsions, and he was dead in half an hour, and Florian found that he would probably have to travel afoot for more than twenty miles before he could rejoin the column on the morrow. 'Where have you come from, Sergeant?' asked Josh Jarrett, when they returned to the public room. 'The fort at the Drakensberg, last.' 'Taking French leave, eh?' said Jarrett, with a portentous wink and a brightening eye. 'Not at all!' replied Florian, indignantly. 'Fellows do so every day now in these short-service times.' 'I was going to the front, when my horse fell lame.' 'Belong to the Mounted Infantry?' 'The dismounted now, I think,' replied Florian. 'I should like to rest here for the night, and push on as best I can to-morrow; so what can I have for supper?' Josh Jarrett paused a moment, as if he thought a sergeant's purse would not go far in the way of luxuries, and then replied: 'Rasher of bacon and eggs, or dried beef and a good glass of squareface or Cape smoke, which you please.' 'The first will do, and a glass of the squareface, which means Hollands, I suppose. Cape smoke is a disagreeable spirit,' replied Florian wearily, as he took off his helmet and seated himself in a large cane-bottomed chair. 'Won't you lay aside your revolver?' asked Jarrett. 'Thanks--well, no--I am used to it.' 'As you please,' said the other surlily, and summoning in a loud voice a female named 'Nan,' left the room. The latter laid the table, brought in the frugal supper, with a case bottle of squareface, and, instead of leaving the room, seated herself near a window and entered into conversation, with what object Florian scarcely knew, but he disliked the circumstance, till he began to remember that she probably considered herself his equal. When his hasty repast was over, taking a hint from a remark that he was weary, she withdrew, and then Florian began to consider the situation. He was fully twenty miles from the regiment; a rough country, not to be traversed even by daylight, infested with wild animals, and many obnoxious things, such as puff-adders, perhaps Zulus, lay between; and unless Jarrett would accommodate him with a horse, which was very unlikely (he seemed such a sullen and forbidding fellow), he would have to travel the journey on foot, and begin betimes on the morrow as soon as dawn would enable him to see the track eastward. He examined Sheldrake's handsome revolver and its ammunition, reloading the six chambers carefully. Then he thought of the company's money; and tempted, he knew not by what rash impulse unless it was mere boyish curiosity, he untied the red tape by which the paymaster had secured the mouth of the bag to have a peep at the gold.