"How so, major?" asked Ronald. "What! a British grenadier like you, that would not duck his head to a forty-six pound shot?" "Why, man! I would scorn to duck to a shot from auld Mons Meg herself; but then a mummy, and in the dark, is another affair altogether. I care nothing about cutting a man down to the breeks, and did so at Corunna, in Egypt, and in Holland, more than once; but I am not over fond of dead corpses, to tell you the truth, and very few Highlandmen you’ll find that are. Have I never before told you of my adventure with the mummies, and the _tulzie_ that Fassifern and I had at Alexandria?" "No,—never!" "Bevan knows all about it." "He was in Egypt ’with Sir Ralph,’ you know. It must be something new to us, major." "I’ll tell you the story; meantime light cigars and fill your glasses, for talking is but dry work, and there’s sherry enough here,—not to mention the Malaga, to last us till _reveille_, even if we drink as hard as the king’s German Legion." His companions resigned themselves to their fate, three of them consoled by the idea that it was one of the major’s stories they had never heard before. Cigars were promptly lighted, and the red points, glowing strangely in the dark, were the beacons which dimly showed each where the others sat. "Drink, gentlemen; fill your glasses, fill away, lads. However, I must tell you the affair as briefly as possible. I am field-officer for the day, and have to visit the quarter-guards and cursed out-picquets in the plain below: but I will go the rounds at ten, and desire them to mark me at two in the morning. They are all our own fellows, and will behave like Trojans, if I wish them." "Well, Campbell, the story." After a few short pulls at the cigar, and long ones at his wine-cup, the major commenced the story, which is given in the following chapter, and as near the original as I can from recollection repeat it. *CHAPTER II.* *THE MAJOR’S STORY.* "Who has not heard, where Egypt’s realms are named, What monster gods her frantic sons have framed? Here ibis gorg’d with well-grown serpents, there The crocodile commands religious fear." _Juvenal_, sat. xv. "We are a fine regiment as any in the line; but I almost think we were a finer corps when we landed in Egypt in 1801. We had been embodied among the clan of Gordon just six years before, and there was scarcely a man in the ranks above five-and-twenty years of age,—all fiery young Highlanders, raised among the men of Blair-Athol, Braemar, Strathdu, Garioch, Strathbogie, and the duke’s own people, the ’gay and the gallant,’ as they were styled in the olden time. "There is a story current that the corps was raised in consequence of some wager between the Duchess of Gordon and the Prince of Wales, about who would muster a regiment in least time; and certainly, her grace got the start of his royal highness.