The meeting of Roland and Jack Elliot was one of perplexity, gloom, and genuine distress. Far away from the land where they could be of help or use in unravelling the mystery, or succouring Maude, whom they deemed then a houseless fugitive, they felt themselves miserably powerless, hopeless, and exasperated; but curiously, perhaps, they never thought of suspecting the real author of the mischief, and were utterly at a loss to conceive how such a complication and accusation came about in any way. Neither Jack nor Roland could know or conceive that she was safe under her uncle's wing at Merlwood. Thus they had to endure the anxiety of supposing her, with all her beauty, refinement, and delicacy, to be adrift in some homeless, aimless, and despairing way in London--haunted by anger and terror of an injury and irreparable wrong. The contemplation of this state of affairs filled the minds of both with incessant torture--a torture for which there was no relief, and would be none, either by letter or telegraph, for a long time, if ever, to them, as inexorably--in two days now--the regiment would be again on the Nile. 'Reason how we may,' was the ever-recurring and gloomy thought of Roland now, 'it has been said that Fate does certainly pursue some families to their ruin and extinction, and such is our probable end--the Lindsays of Earlshaugh!' And so, apart from their brother officers, these two conversed and talked of the mysterious episode of the woman and her claims again and again, viewing it in every imaginable way, till they almost grew weary of it, in the hopelessness of elucidating it while in the Soudan; and as for poor Malcolm Skene and _his_ fate, that was supposed to be a thing of the past, and they ceased to surmise about it. At 2 p.m. on the 28th of December the start for Khartoum began! It was made by the South Staffordshire, under the gallant Eyre, with exactly 19 officers and 527 men of the Regiment, and 2 officers and 20 men of the Royal Engineers in 50 boats, having the Staffordshire Knot painted on their bows, the badge of the old '38th.' The sight was a fine and impressive one; the band was playing merrily in the leading boat, as usual, Scottish and Irish airs, as England, apparently, has none for any martial purpose. Thus it is that Scottish and Irish quicksteps are now ordered by the Horse Guards for nearly all the English regiments, with Highland reels for the Cavalry, and one other air in the 'Queen's Regulations,' with which we bid farewell to the old colours, is 'Auld Lang Syne.'