And between the brilliant glaring sky and the sun-scorched arid earth, there hung a heavy cloud of gunpowder smoke while the flower of two races fought desperately for conquest. In the midst a square of British troops, with set white faces and sternly compressed lips, with watchful eyes well on the alert, and in each brave heart the knowledge that the fight was for life or death. And on all hands swarms of stalwart Soudanese, reckless of life and counting death their chiefest gain, shouting on Allah and the prophet to aid them, and dying happy in the certain faith of entering paradise if but one Christian dog should fall to their hand. Oh, what a scene it was! Only a handful of men at bay, while mass after mass of the enemy came down upon them like the waves of the incoming tide upon the sea shore; and as at times a rock-bound coast gives way and falls before the encroaching advances of the ocean, so that ill-fated square gave way before the overwhelming numbers of the soldiers of the Prophet, and in a moment all chance for our men seemed over. Ay; but the British lion can up and fight again after he has had a roll over which would crush the life out of most of his foes. And so that day, by sheer hard desperate fighting, the square closed up and was formed again, and of all the enemy who had dashed into the midst of it, not one lived to tell the tale. But, oh! what though the enemy fell half a score to one? How many a brave life was laid down that day, and how many a bullet had found its billet was proved by the shrieks of agony which rose and rang above all the tumult of the fight. It happened that our old friend, Ted Petres, no longer a short and sturdy boy but a fine-grown young fellow of one-and-twenty now, found himself not very far from the place where the square had been broken--found himself fighting hard to win the day and check the mad on-rush of the sons of the Prophet. As the ranks closed up once more, he, as did most others who were in the rear, turned his attention to the seething mass of blacks thus trapped, and to his horror saw his comrade, Jack Green, down on his knees, striking wildly here and there against the attacks of three Soudanese. Quick as thought--the thought that this was the first time he had ever had a chance of fulfilling his last promise to his boy’s love, Tom--Ted flew to his aid, sent one shouting gentleman to paradise, and neatly disabled the right arm of a second just as the third put his spear through poor Jack’s lungs.