It was perfectly calm and still; the sun was getting low in the west, but its rays, though not so scorching as at mid-day, were sickening, and productive of extreme lassitude. On the first low range of hills they crossed the bodies were not numerous, and down in the valley at the foot of them they only came upon one group. A knot of Arabs retreating to their last position had evidently been overtaken by a shell bursting in their midst, and their fearfully mangled bodies showed what modern science can effect when applied in earnest to the work of war. On the next ridge the Soudanese dead lay thicker; lying dotted about singly where the Martini-Henry bullets had stopped them, or strewed in rows like the corn sheaves where the reaping machine has passed, as the Gatling guns, sweeping slowly from right to left, and pouring missiles with the regularity and continuous stream of a fire-engine, had mowed their ranks. "I say, Gubbins," said Davis, "we fought fairly well to-day I reckon; but do you think we should have stood against such a fire as that?" "Well, I don't know," replied Gubbins. "If there had been any cover near I, for one, should have felt uncommon inclined to make for it. I can't abide them shells and machine-guns." "No, it seems like fighting against lightning and thunderbolts, don't it?" said Davis. But as this was an idea which required some cogitation and digesting before it could become assimilated in the Gubbins' mind, it remained without reply. As they approached the edge of the nullah the harvest of Soudanese lay thicker and thicker, and when they got down into the dry bed of the watercourse, they had to pick their way in places to avoid treading on the corpses. And here, for the first time, English dead lay intermingled with the Arab. There was peace between them now. "Look carefully here," said Green, turning over a kharkee-clad body which lay on its face as he spoke: it was not his friend. "Ah, would yer!" cried Davis, presently; and there was a gasp and a cry, which might be rage or pain, as he thrust his bayonet into an Arab who, though his legs were shattered, made a cut at him with his sword as he passed. And Davis was as tender-hearted a man as ever stepped; liked playing with children; petted dogs, cats, and birds; and would risk his own life to save that of another, though a perfect stranger. He had proved it, and had the right to wear the medal of the Royal Humane Society on his right breast. But circumstances are too strong for all of us. The search was long and ineffective. "You are certain it was in the nullah that Mr Strachan killed the Arab who was on the top of you?" Green asked Davis. "Certain, sir; and that rock I showed you was the one the Johnny jumped off, I am pretty sure; though there's such a many of them, and they are so like, I wouldn't swear."