The uniform was her sufficient guarantee, and she climbed up and straddled the horse, and locked her arms tightly round Jim's waist. "All right?" he asked. And they turned to the road. Two minutes later they fell in with a Turkish patrol galloping up at sound of the firing, and had some difficulty in making them understand that they were not carrying off the girl on their own account. They were only convinced by being led back to the place where the wounded Bashis lay. Then they offered to take care of the girl and see her safely home. But she knew them too well and would have none of them. She clung like a leech to Jim, and at last they were permitted to go on their way. They had many little adventures of the kind, and they tended to keep their blood in circulation, and the blues, which afflicted their fellows, at a distance. Lord Deseret had laid down the law for Jim as regards eating and drinking. "I have lived in Turkey," he said. "Drink no water unless it has been boiled, and then dash it with rum. Tea or coffee are better still. And eat as little fruit as possible; it's tempting, but dangerous." And Jim used to get wildly angry with his men, when he saw them devouring cucumbers by the half-dozen, and apricots and plums by the basketful, under the impression that these things were good for their health. They laughed at his remonstrances at first, but remembered them later; and those who did not die foreswore cucumbers for the rest of their lives. CHAPTER XLV MORE REVELATIONS Colonel Carron was constantly looking the boys up, and carrying them off to the best meals they ever got in that country. His Chief, Prince Napoleon, had gone down to Therapia with a touch of fever, and the Colonel was in charge of his quarters and saw to it that His Highness's cooks did not get rusty in his absence. Over these delightful dinners in the leafy arbours which always marked the Prince's quarters, they all came to know one another very much better than they might have done under any ordinary circumstances. And the burden of the Colonel's talk was chiefly regret that one or both of them had not taken his offer and joined him in the French service. "Sorry I am to say it," he said one night, as they sat sipping coffee such as they got nowhere else, and smoking cigars such as their own pockets did not run to, "but your army is only a fancy toy--in the way it's run, I mean. Your men are the finest in the world, what there are of them; but England is not a soldierly nation, say what you like about it." "What about the Peninsula, sir?--to say nothing of Waterloo!" murmured Jack, after a discreet took round.