We must all die sooner or later--a soldier sooner, perhaps, than a civilian; so by will, if aught happens to me--I have left the old place--tower and hill, wood, glen, and water, to--to Eveline--I mean to Lady Paget.' 'Good heavens! To Eveline!' exclaimed Allan, his face full of a surprise that was unseen in the starlight and darkened bell tent.' 'Yes.' 'Have you no one else?' 'None save my brother Duncan, who has himself a large fortune--none whom I love as--as I love her,' added Cameron, in a very broken voice. 'Poor Evan! I always suspected--indeed, knew of it.' 'You did?' 'Yes, Evan.' 'And--and your sister.' 'She loved you.' 'My God!--yet was sacrificed to another.' They wrung each other's hands in the dark, and both remained silent for a time, each full of his own thoughts, and in the gloom seeing nothing but the end of the other's cigar. 'Sir Paget is so rich that he will think little of Stratherroch, even when cleared of its heavy encumbrances,' said Evan. 'But he may think rather wrathfully of the donor, though I trust and hope he may never get it. And now, good-night, Evan. I have to parade the inlying picquet. Get some sleep if you can, old fellow--we'll need all our metal on the morrow.' And Allan, taking his dirk and claymore, hurried away full of thought, for, if his friend really fell, this odd bequest of Stratherroch might compromise his sister with her elderly spouse, and it was impossible to make any change, circumstanced as they were then. 'It is said that "every man has a history, and that every man outlives it,"' thought Allan; 'I wonder how it will be with poor Evan and me. And now to parade the picquet, with that paragon of sergeant-majors, M'Neill. Picquets parade at sunset--here, however, the sun sets before we have time to think of it. But the fight to-morrow will be to Evan and me--for a time, at least--what opium was to De Quincey and the author of the "Ancient Mariner." Fool, fool, fool that I am, to think of _her_ here at all!' He left Evan Cameron inspired by a mingled emotion of gratitude and satisfaction, for Evan now knew and felt certain that, had Eveline been in Allan's gift, she might have been his bride ere this; and with this conviction in his mind he strove to court sleep, while roused ever and anon, as in India, by the wild cry of the jackal. Sir Garnet Wolseley had now come up, the brigade of guards also, and the whole strength of the British force was concentrated at Kassassin, the place of our cavalry victory, where our horse so gallantly charged and swept, sword in hand, through the brigades of Egyptian guns in the dark.