Defaulters' Book, which he was convinced would tell fatally against his chances. Suddenly he flung up his left arm, the right being in a sling, and gave a deep gasp, collapsing in his seat, and falling up against his companion. All his doubts and difficulties about the future were solved, poor fellow! For he was shot through the heart. Presently a camel was wounded, and sank down, groaning pitifully, if pity could have been spared for it, but most of that was absorbed by the soldier, suffering grievously from dysentery, whom he carried, and who was now thrown violently to the ground. A halt was necessary while he was otherwise accommodated, and the covering party pushed close up to the shrubby ground, taking advantage of the mimosas in their turn, and inflicting some loss on the enemy, who seemed now to have quite altered their former tactics, and to prefer distant to close quarters. When the convoy moved on again they closed upon it once more, ready to run up to it at the first signs of a rush upon it. The Soudanese, however, made none; on the contrary, they seemed to find the marksmanship of the escort too accurate for their taste, for they drew off to a distance where the bush was thicker, but so far that the fire they maintained was a mere waste of ammunition. "Where's Grady?" cried a man. "Why don't he come and take his camel?" "Grady!" called the corporal. "Grady!" called the sergeant; but even _his_ superior authority evoked no answer. The officer in command again halted the convoy. "He may be only wounded; we must not leave him," he said. "Who saw him last?" "I can find the place exactly, sir," said Kavanagh, "because of a bit of rock among the scrub which marked the place, and he was making towards it." "Is it far?" "No, not five hundred yards; it was just before we ran in." "Then double out and look for him. Go with him, another of you, and Corporal Adams." But just as this start was being made Grady appeared, shoving before him a man dressed in bernouse and cap, bearing the Mahdi's colours of blue and white, whom he grasped by the scruff of the neck, and, when he showed unwillingness to advance, expedited his movements with a bump from his knee. What had happened was this. While skirmishing he had caught sight of a pair of human heels protruding from a bush which grew on the side of a rock, and he came to the conclusion that there probably were legs attached to those heels, and a body in continuation. So he made a detour, and crept up very softly from behind till he was within reach of those heels, which he promptly seized--or rather the ankles above them--and drew out a wriggling Arab with a rifle in his hand, which he could not get a chance of using against the person who was drawing him.