But the wounded man made no reply. It is to be feared that he only thought either that the speaker was a great liar, or else that his countrymen were great fools. It was evident that, so far from being touched, he would be the first to betray the secret of Harry's hiding- place to his returning friends if he knew it. So as Harry did not like to shoot him through the head, or draw his sword across his throat, he made a detour as if going across the desert, and did not commence the ascent until he was out of the other's sight. It was not very steep or very high, but Harry had some difficulty in getting up it. He felt very weak, giddy, and queer, and had hardly got to the wood, and sunk down under the shade of trees behind a big black boulder, than he lost consciousness, for he had bled more than he knew for, and it was that which turned him faint. How long he lay without consciousness he did not know; and I daresay that you have noticed in story-books that people never _do_ know. Indeed, it would take a very methodical person to look at his watch just as he was going off in a swoon, and refer to it again as he came to. Harry Forsyth certainly never looked at his watch, but he snatched his water-bottle, for one effect of loss of blood is to cause intense thirst. A quantity of liquid being taken out of the body. Nature seems to point out in this way that the loss should be supplied; you know she is said to abhor a vacuum. If he had had all his senses about him, he would merely have taken a sup and held it in his mouth some time before swallowing it; but he was half dazed, and did not know where he was, and he yielded to the instinct of thirst and took a long, deep draught. For the present it was the best thing he could have done, for the effect was that he sank into a sound restoring sleep, which must have lasted many hours, for when he woke again the night was far advanced, and there were streaks of dawn in the east, and it was quite two hours to sunset when he had begun his nap. The wound in his head smarted, but otherwise he felt stronger and more refreshed, only hungry. He had crammed some biscuits into his kharkee jacket the day before, and these he ate, washing them down with what remained in the water-bottle, which he emptied without much compunction, as he reckoned that he would easily strike the trail of the column and come up with it in a short time. They had reckoned before he left that it was three hours' march at the longest to the wells within sight of El Obeid, where they were to halt for the night, and he thought that he surely ought to be able to walk, alone and unencumbered, at least as fast again as the square moved, and he had little fear of not being in time for the attack. The place could hardly be carried by a _coup de main_; they would have to breach the walls with artillery first. Of course he might be cut off on his road; that was a risk which could not be helped or avoided.