"I doubt if we go at Matammeh before we get reinforcements," said Macintosh. "And what will we want with reinforcements?" asked Grady; "haven't we bate the inimy into fiddle-strings already?" "Yes, if they only knew it," said Kavanagh. "But they seem to take a lot of persuading before they own themselves beaten." "They do, the poor ignorant creatures," said Grady, reflectively. "And we can't kill the lot of 'em, which is what they seem to want; they are too many." "If there _is_ a big fight in a day or two we shan't be in it," said Corporal Adams, who had come up in time to hear the end of the conversation. "The orders are out, and our company has got to go ten miles off to- morrow." "Only our company, corporal?" "That's all detailed in orders." "And does it say what for?" "It does not; rikkernottering most like. But you will hear them read presently." That was done, and Corporal Adams was quite correct. This particular company was ordered to take a certain amount of ammunition both for mouth and rifle, and march out in a certain specified direction. If they found water they were to make a zereba, or otherwise entrench themselves and remain until further orders; if not, they were to return at once. There was a little disappointment amongst both officers and men of the company. "We will be out of all the fun entirely," said Grady. "They will catch the Mahdi, relieve Khartoum, rescue Gordon, and have all their names in the newspapers--and we will have nothing to say to it at all, at all." "Don't you believe it," said Kavanagh. "The general would not send a rifle away if he were going to attack. He has heard something, or knows something we can't guess at, and means waiting for more troops to come up, you may depend. And our expedition has something to do, I should not wonder, with covering the flank of the reinforcements. We shall be called in, no fear, before the big battle is fought." But even with those who thought differently the matter did not weigh very heavily. They had already fallen into the true campaigning frame of mind which takes things as they come--good quarters and bad; fighting and resting; outpost duty or guarding stores, even wounds and death-- very philosophically. As the company was to start some time before daybreak, the men wisely left off discussing matters, and went to sleep. Then came their rising while it was still night, and the raking together of the embers of the bivouac fire, and breakfasting; then the saddling and lading of camels, amid the dismal lamentations of those grievance-mongering animals; then the start in darkness, and the mind adapting itself to the lethargic monotony of the tramp. Every one was chilly; every one was a trifle sullen at not being in bed; no one was inclined to talk.