"Do you know that Canrobert lost three thousand of his men up in the Dobrudscha?" "Three thousand!" gasped Jim. "They got into some swamp full of rotting horses and dead Russians and consequent pestilence, and the men died like flies." "It is hard to go like that," said Jim. "I'd sooner die ten times over in fair fight than of the cholera. That's what's knocking the heart out of the men, that and having nothing to do but watch the other fellows die." "Ay--well, we'll give them something to do at last. Every Tom, Dick, and François is to set to work making fascines and gabions." "That means a siege, then," said Jack, with delight. "And our time's coming after all." CHAPTER XLVI THE BLACK LANDING From that time on there was no lack of work. The spirits of the me, went up fifty per cent, and the general health improved in like ratio. Hard work proved the best of tonics. And, of a truth, a tonic was needed. It took the Guards--the flower of the British army--two days march from Aladyn to the sea at Varna, a distance of ten miles. So reduced were they by sickness, that five miles a day was all they could manage, and even then their packs were carried for them. For those in charge there was no rest, by day or Light, until the embarkation was complete. When Jim Carron followed his last horse on board the _Himalaya_, he tumbled into a bath and then into a bunk, and slept for twenty-four hours without moving a finger. But he had ample time, when he woke up, fresh and hungry, to admire that most wonderful sight of close on seven hundred ships, of all shapes and sizes--from the stately _Agamemnon_, flying the Admiral's flag, to the steam-tug _Pigmy_, wrestling valiantly with a transport twenty times her size--as they crept slowly across the Black Sea, with 80,000 men on board for the chastisement of the Russian Bear. A sight for a lifetime, indeed, but one which no man who remembers or thinks of would ever wish to set eyes on again. Jim and his fellows, however, rejoiced in it, for without doubt it meant business at last, and they had almost begun to despair. So, in due time, they came in sight of the tented mountains and the coast; and after what seemed to the ardent ones still more vacillation and delays, the launches and flat-boats got to work, and the long strip of shingle which lay between the sea and a great lake behind became black with men. All was eagerness and anticipation. The voyage had had a good effect on bodies sorely weakened by disease, and the prospect of active employment at last a still better effect on hearts that had grown heavy with disappointment. But ten days of life-giving sea cannot entirely undo the mischief of the sickly months ashore. Numbers died on the voyage. Of those who landed, few indeed were the men they had been when they left England six months before, but hearts ran high if bodies were worn and weak.