And she disappeared with a happy laugh, leaving the other standing there in a condition little short of dazed, and sticking a pin into himself to make sure that he was actually awake and not merely dreaming. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Note. Literally `flogging the name.' When a Zulu regiment returned from battle, those who had specially distinguished themselves were pointed at by the commanding induna and _named_ to the King. Each thus named came forward separately and danced before the King, recapitulating his deeds. The while his comrades in arms signalled his distinction by striking their shields with their knob-sticks and roaring out his name. CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR. AS AN OASIS. Day dawned, cloudless and golden, in its full African splendour. The night had passed without any alarm, but, to make sure, the force had divided the night between it to mount guard, that section of it off duty sleeping in the open--arms ready to hand. Their leader appeared to be made of iron. Stirring events, peril, fatigue, had been crowded into his experience since his last night's sleep, four nights ago, but all seemed to go for nothing. He was here, there, everywhere, the night through, seeming to need no sleep. And with the first sign of a glimmer of dawn, the whole force was up and under arms, waiting and ready, for that is the hour--when sleep is heaviest, and vigilance in consequence relaxed--that the untiring savage favours for making his attack. But no such attack was made, and the night passed quietly and without alarm, as we have said. "Dash it all, Lamont! Why don't you turn in, man? You're overdoing it, you know. You haven't had forty winks for about four nights. You'll bust up all of a sudden, and at the wrong time, if you don't watch it. How's that?" Thus Peters, what time the tired and worn-out men were simply subsiding on the bare ground, and dropping off into log-like slumber the moment they touched it; and that under the glorious blue of the heavens and the sweeping gold of the newly risen sun. "I couldn't sleep, Peters--no, not if I were paid to," was the answer. "But I'm going to see if I can scare up a tub and a razor. At present I must be looking the most desperate ruffian you could _not_ wish to meet in a lonely lane." Peters looked after him and shook his head, slowly and mournfully. "He's got it," he said to himself. "By the Lord, he's got it. I could see that when, like the blithering ass I am, I interrupted them that evening. No, it isn't sheer aptitude for tough campaigning that keeps his peepers open when nobody else can keep theirs."