This was one of the things which made Kavanagh like Grady's company; he had a real innate love of the beauties of Nature, which you would rarely find in an Englishman of the same class. Together they watched the glories of the transformation scene shifting before them. Low on the horizon the deepest crimson changing and blending as it rose into violet; higher up the blue of the sapphire and the green of the emerald; and when these colours were the most intense, the two rose, and turned back to camp slowly and reluctantly, still gazing in silence. For now the after-glow succeeded; first the sky was a most brilliant orange, such a tint as would cause the painter who could at all approach it to be accused of the most absurd exaggeration by those who had not seen the real colour, while those who had would esteem it far too faint. This changed to an equally brilliant rose colour; and then, in a few seconds, suddenly, as if "Lights out" had been sounded in the zenith, darkness! "It is like going to church," said Grady. "Yes," replied Kavanagh; "that makes one feel God great and man little, doesn't it?" "Aye!" They were barely a quarter of an hour from camp, and the fires guided them; for hot as it was in the daytime the nights were chilly, and a bonfire in the open acceptable. They found their mates gathered round the largest in great excitement. "Here, you chaps," was the cry which assailed them when they made their appearance, "can either of you make a plum-pudding?" "Of course," replied Kavanagh. "There's nothing easier if you only have the materials." "Well, the materials have just come; how do you work them up?" "Why, make them into a pudding and boil it, of course." "Any idiot knows that; but how do you make them into a pudding? If we spoil one, you know, we shan't have any opportunity of trying a second time, so none of your experiments." "That's serious!" "I should think it was!" "Well, you take the flour and put it in a basin, and moisten it with water; and you put in your plums and raisins and citron, and beat up half a dozen eggs and put them in too, and three glasses of brandy, and anything else that's good you have got, and you knead it all up for a good bit, and put it in a cloth, and tie it up tight with a piece of string, and boil it as long as you can; all to-night and to-morrow and to-morrow night, and so right up to dinnertime." "It sounds pretty right," said the first speaker, doubtfully; "but how do you know? Did you ever make one?" "Why, I cannot say that exactly, but I have seen many made, and helped to stir them." "Lately?" "Not so very, when I was a boy." "It would be a sinful waste to put sperrits into a pudding," observed Macintosh. "It would all boil away, and no one be a bit the better." "No fear! Good liquor's too scarce for that," cried another. "Brandy is a great improvement, when you have it, for all that," maintained Kavanagh.