Charteris hesitated a moment. "No, I don't," he said. "If Sher Singh is occupying the bad bit at all, his men are there already--sent off probably while he kept you in talk after the big flare-up--for it would be no good despatching them after we had started. Don't it strike you as queer that they have made no motion to harass our rear? I imagine they are holding back till they can catch us between two fires. If you agree with me, let us give the beasts a rest and a feed here, and send two or three of my beggars scouting ahead." Gerrard consented, and they saw that the horses were picketed so as to provide a barrier against a sudden rush, made the men lie down with their weapons beside them, posted sentries all round the bivouac, and agreed to keep watch for an hour each, to ensure the sentries not going calmly to sleep. Gerrard, who felt wide-awake again now after talking and walking about, insisted on taking the first watch, which passed uneventfully. Then he called Charteris, and dropping into the hollow which the latter had scooped for himself in the sand, was asleep in a moment, only to be waked, as it seemed, in another moment, by his friend's shaking him vigorously. "Time to get up, Hal! No shaving-water, so don't look round in that bewildered way. You'd arrive at Ranjitgarh with a beard--a fine, flowing, patriarchal, even prophetic beard, like what Ronaldson has taken to sport--if this sort of thing went on long. He paid me a visit when he was passing through to his district, and I assure you I was immensely taken with his new adornment. It would be perfectly killing among the ladies, I'm sure--throw our poor whiskers and moustaches horribly into the shade. Talk of owls! I never saw any one stare like you. This, my young friend, is a cup of tea, and this is a hard-boiled egg--the best _choti haziri_ our chaps can manage--and the animal beside you, looking astonished at your laziness, is your horse, vulgarly termed a quad. But give me your hand, old boy, and let me haul you up to take part in this epicurean meal." "You're in spirits to-day, Bob," observed Gerrard, with a mighty yawn, as he accepted the tin cup.