Harry, having thought over the best course to pursue in such a contingency, consented with apparent alacrity, but said that he hoped his shortcomings would be excused. His uncle, not knowing how much that hope covered, replied that he must not take the Kor Dofan for Wimbledon, and the most elementary instruction would be esteemed extremely scientific. So the very next day Harry found himself with a squad of five hundred men to instruct. "Delightful task, to rear the tender root--to teach five hundred Arabs how 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 so large a number, without assistance, could not avail much: but he wanted to do nothing at all. His uncle was not present; he had no one to check him, able to judge whether his instruction was good or bad. So he stuck some stones up for butts, 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 to firing at a comparatively innocuous distance; and in the second, that they 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. CHAPTER FOURTEEN. TRINKITAT. The _Alligator_ troopship came tearing along the Red Sea, sending the spray flying from her bows, and churning up the historical water with her screw, just as if it were ordinary commonplace sea-water, without any sacred, classical, or poetical associations! The men gathered on the forecastle and the officers on the poop were alike gazing hard at a town of brilliant whiteness, which became more distinct every minute. "And that is Suakim," said one of the group of officers. "It looks very clean at a distance. What is it made of, doctor?" Doctor MacBean was a middle-aged man who liked the society of young ones because he had one little weakness: he was very fond of holding forth, and young men were more inclined to listen patiently to him than older ones. He was a naturalist, a sportsman, and had been a great traveller. There are men who go through Greece, as they would through Surrey, gleaning nothing; but the doctor was not one of them. If he were only a day in a place he learned all about it, and what he learned he remembered. So that to be in his company was to have an encyclopaedia conveniently at hand, from which you could learn what you wanted to know without the trouble of turning over the leaves. For the rest, such a _boy_ past forty there never was--ready for anything for sport or fun, even to a spice of practical joking; and with all this a grave Scottish face which imposed upon those who had not found him out. But in matters of information he was trustworthy, his passion for fact overcoming his love of mystification.