"Nothing to speak of. It was a bit of rank bad luck. Of course, seeing what the game was, I felt I must wire the Chief at once, and Lawrence offered to bring me here in his aeroplane. We came along swimmingly until we had got about half way: saw nothing of the enemy: and then rather suddenly struck a rabble of about two thousand men marching southward. We came down rather too low, to get a good look at them. They opened fire, and one of their shots tore my arm from shoulder to elbow. If we had made a straight course we shouldn’t have met trouble: but naturally I wanted to pick up any information I could. Unluckily in going criss-cross we consumed a good deal of petrol, and when it became necessary to replenish the tank from the reserve cans, we found that they’d been bored with holes during our peppering; one was empty, in the other there were a few spoonfuls at the bottom below the level of the hole. This only lasted a few miles, and then we had to come down, in the hills yonder." "Rough luck!" said Captain Fenton, turning sympathetically to Lawrence. "You must have felt pretty mad. How did you bring the machine in?" "I happened to mention when we were talking things over that paraffin would do at a pinch, and the major said he was pretty sure they would have some here, and insisted on tramping over to get some sent up." "Well, you see, he’s got a game foot," said the major. "Sprained his ankle two days ago. My legs are sound, at any rate. But I was pretty dead beat before I got here, and was glad enough to borrow the mount of one of the men Narrain sent to meet me. He and the other fellow went on to keep Appleton company, and as soon as the paraffin was sent up, the aeroplane came flying in with the sowar on board as a passenger. He was bubbling with delight, and no doubt will be a hero among the men for the rest of his days." "Mr. Appleton wants to get back to the mine, of course," said the captain. "Yes: there’s enough paraffin for that. How are matters round the fort, Fenton?" "The tribes are pretty quiet at present. They’ve held several jirgahs to discuss what line they shall take. That depends on who scores the first point. If we can only convince them that we’re not going to knuckle under, I daresay they’ll stick to us. But it wouldn’t take much to turn the scale on the other side. The crowd that fired at you are marching this way, you said?" "They’ll be hereabouts some time to-morrow, and probably a lot more, for we caught sight of other parties, not so large, threading the valleys to the west. The whole country north-west of us is rising." "That’s bad. I can’t hope to keep the tribes about the fort quiet after these thousands come on the scene." "I must see what I can do." "You ought to be in hospital. If you had let me know you’d been hit I’d have brought the medico with me." "Good thing you didn’t. He’d have been so disappointed!"