Allan cast a long and sad glance at it too; then he laid a hand on the heart; it might be only syncope--no, it did not seem to be that. The profile of his face in its stillness looked like a classic cameo cut in high relief. His fair, almost golden, hair, clipped close with military precision, retained still its crispy ripple. The brown moustache shading the short upper lip had been somewhat untrimmed of late; but he looked so life-like that Allan almost shuddered as he spread the blanket over him and covered him up--for he felt that in that wretched substitute for a shroud lay one whom he knew his sister--married albeit as she was to another--loved better than life! It was hard to think of so young and gallant a life being cut short thus by the inexorable scissors of Fate; but he was gone to the 'Land of the leal,' where there can be no sorrow nor thought of sordid things. 'We cannot leave him lying here thus; neither can we carry him off; while there is a chance of these Bedouin devils coming on again. Besides, there are always jackals about,' said Allan, as he took possession of Evan's claymore, dirk, and ring. 'Scoop a hole--a temporary grave in the sand--and cover him up, till we can return by daylight, and bring him into quarters for proper interment.' The soldiers, with their hands, bayonets, and rifle-butts, hollowed a trench some three feet deep, and therein, rolled in a blanket, they reverently deposited the yet warm form of Cameron, and covered it up with sand. Allan maintained a grim silence, and, though his heart was full of genuine grief, the remarks of his soldiers pleased him. 'Those who have lived with us and died as he has done will never be forgotten in the regiment, sir,' said Sergeant Farquharson. 'Mourn for the mourner, I have heard my mother say in Gaelic, and not for the dead, as they are at rest and we in tears,' said Donald, as he hooked-on his water-bottle. 'He has none to mourn for him now but one, and she is far away,' remarked Allan, with a swelling in his throat. 'And now fall in, lads.' The Highlanders marched on their way back to Matarieh in silence, impressed by the recent episode; for, if gallant and reckless fellows in battle, they were thoughtful and full of sorrow for the brave young officer they had lost. A shot or two, fired apparently at random in the distance, sparkling out redly amid the obscurity, showed that the Bedouins were following them up, and must have passed over the very place where Cameron lay. The silence of the starry night was upon the world then--upon the ridgy summits of Jebel Mokattam, and darkness now enfolded the desert where Evan Cameron lay in such awful loneliness, without even the grim companionship of the dead--the last Cameron of the old fighting line of Stratherroch.