Following, but at a distance, the line taken by the Prince Imperial and his six reconnoitring troopers, General Wood, after issuing from a dense coppice of thorn trees, interspersed with graceful date palms and enormous feathery bamboo canes, came suddenly on a deep and smooth tributary of the Ityotyosi, and after contriving to ford it at a place where its banks were fringed by beautiful acacias and drooping palms with fan-shaped leaves, to his astonishment some mounted men appeared in his front, and all apparently fugitives. With twelve of his troopers the fearless Buller, who had seen them also, now came galloping up and rode on with Sir Evelyn, and in rounding the base of a tall cliff they came suddenly upon Lieutenant Carey, of the 98th Foot, and four troopers of Bettington's Corps, all riding at a furious pace, their horses flecked with white foam, and with sides bloody by the goring spurs. They reined up pale and breathlessly, and in another minute or two their terrible secret was told. 'Where is the Prince Imperial?' cried Sir Evelyn, as he rushed his horse over some fallen trees in his haste to meet the fugitives. But Carey, who seemed as dead beat as his horse, was at first apparently incapable of replying. 'Speak, sir!' cried the General impetuously. 'What has happened?' Still Carey seemed incapable of speech. 'Sir,' said one of the troopers, 'the Prince, I fear, is killed.' The speaker was Private Le Toque, a Frenchman. 'Is that the case? Tell me instantly, sir!' resumed the General, with growing excitement. 'I fear it is so,' faltered Carey, in a low voice. 'Then _what are you doing here, sir?_' A veil must be drawn over the rest of the interview, which was of a most painful character, wrote Major Ashe in his narrative of the occurrence. A soldier--Tom Tyrrell, encouraged by the knowledge that his late comrade Florian was there--came rushing into the mess-tent, where Florian, with those who were now his brother-officers, was seated in happiness and jollity, bearing the terrible tidings, which spread through the camp like wildfire, and all who had horses mounted and rode forth to discover if they were true, and all spoke sternly and reprehensively of the luckless Lieutenant Carey, who eventually was tried by a court-martial, and died two years after in India, some said of a broken heart. As Florian was one of the searchers for the slain Prince, the story of this latter's tragic death does not lie apart from ours. It would seem, briefly, then, that the charger ridden by the Prince, when he left Lord Chelmsford's camp, and which in the end chiefly led to his death, was a clumsy and awkward animal, given to rearing and shying. After crossing the Ityotyosi, then swollen by the recent rains, the Prince and his party rode on through a district covered with grass-like rush, kreupelboom, and dwarf acacias.