"And you had not leisure to look very particularly. But still, though you saw him here, he may have gone back for some of his men, for in dodging the enemy round stones and bushes they got scattered a bit. We had better go over the ground where we were so hard at it." So they clambered up the further bank of the nullah, and stood again on the ground over which they had advanced, been driven back, and advanced again in the morning. Here the Soudanese lay in hundreds, piled up in places in heaps, three or even four deep, one on the top of another. And here too the English dead were terribly thick. But the ambulance had been at work for some hours, and all who had life in them were removed, while many of the dead had been withdrawn from the mingled heaps, and laid decently side by side, and apart. Green saw that this acre of the Aceldama had been, or was being, thoroughly explored, and he returned to the nullah, where the three continued their search, examining now the outlying crevices and bushes, where individual men, stricken to death, had crawled away; or the pursuing English, observing skulking foes, had spread to clear them out, and prevent being fired upon from the rear after they had passed; and searching in this manner they got separated. Where could poor Tom Strachan have got to? The sun was sinking fast, there would not be much more daylight, and if he were not found soon he might be left without help all night. For Green would not think of him as dead, and no more for that matter did Gubbins, though Davis had given up all hope long ago. But he did not say so. Walking up the nullah a bit to the right, Green came to the foot of a huge mass of black rock about twelve feet high, and he thought that from the top of that he might get a more extended view of the bed of the nullah, and perhaps discern some hollow which had not yet been explored. The climbing was not difficult, and he soon sprang up. There were smaller boulders on the little plateau, and a mimosa bush, and an English officer lying on his back, with his arms extended, and his sword attached to his right wrist. Green ran to his side; it was the object of his search--Tom Strachan. "Dead!" he cried. "Poor old Tom; dead after all!" He knelt down and took his left arm up in order to get nearer to his body, to feel if there was warmth in it. The arm was limp, not stiff; the fingers had been cut by some sharp weapon, and when stirred, blood dropped from them. These signs gave Green fresh hope, and loosening the kharkee, he thrust his hand into his breast. Certainly there was warmth! He raised the body a little, propping the shoulders against a stone, and taking out a flask he had brought for the purpose, he poured a little brandy into the mouth. It was swallowed. He gave him more, and presently he moved his lips and eyelids.