'The cool, calm commands of Colonel M'Leod,' says Mr. Stanley, whom we cannot help quoting, 'had a marvellous effect on the Highland battalion--so much so that the conduct of all other white regiments pales before that of the 42nd.' Frequently during the hot and rapid march to Coomassie the Highlanders saw emerging from the bushes several scores of fugitives, who found their movements accelerated by the volleys they received on such occasions. Village after village along the road heard the disastrous tidings which the fugitives conveyed, and long before the Highlanders approached the place where the king remained during the battle, he had decamped because of these reports. King Koffee never for a moment anticipated a complete defeat, and believed that he would only fall back in good order to give us battle at the head of all his warriors in front of Coomassie itself, and thus obtain a peace which would at least spare his palace--on which he set a great store--from destruction. When Sir Garnet Wolseley, with the main body, was drawing near that place, he received another despatch from the front. Sir Archibald Alison wrote to say that he had given some time to treat. Thus a delay occurred in consequence, and of this delay the circumstances are not very clear to the outer world. It does not appear from some accounts to have been Sir Garnet's wish, yet it undoubtedly took place, and put the troops to some inconvenience by allowing night to fall before they entered the place. 'Coomassie at last!' exclaimed Dalton, as he threw himself, panting with heat, among the luxuriant grass that bordered the now bloody and corpse-strewn pathway. 'Let us but take it, lay it in ashes, and then hey for home!' he added, hopefully. Yet he had had two narrow escapes; one ball had knocked off his helmet, and another had scarred his left cheek. 'Yes, hey for home,' said Jerry, proffering his cigar-case; but poor Dalton little knew all that had to be dared and done before he saw the last of Coomassie! All knew that when the final attack was made there would be a fierce resistance to encounter--a great slaughter pretty certain to ensue--no quarter given or taken; and, like several others in the corps, during the unexpected halt, Dalton and Jerry were writing what might prove to each a last letter to those they loved at home; and as the former wrote there came curiously and persistently to memory the last verse of the song Laura was wont to sing to him of old: 'Then think of me! for withered lies The dearest hope I nursed; And I have seen, with bitter sighs, My brightest dream dispersed.' Is it strange that, after the peculiar manner of their parting, Jerry's first and longest letter was not to his mother, but to Bella Chevenix? 'Poor Bella!' said he, in a broken voice, almost to himself, as he closed the epistle. 'You did not part on bad terms?' asked Dalton. 'No, thank God! What made you think so?' 'Something in your tone.'