The first speaker was rather a slight figure, but withal strongly built; thin and wiry, he showed no superfluous flesh. The rather prominent forehead was tanned to a deep brown, save where the line of the forage-cap showed the white skin of the European; the cheeks were sunken, and bore the sallow tinge of sickness, while the aquiline nose, the well-cut mouth, and the rather heavy under jaw, spoke of determination and vigour of character. Nearly six feet in height, he lay languidly back in his chair, the dark masses of hair curling under the forage-cap, and the large black eyes giving a still more marked appearance of illness to his features. "If I could shake off this feeling of illness, Harris," he replied, "get rid of this terrible Bellary fever, you may depend upon it. I would throw up my leave. One's regiment becomes one's family after nearly twelve years' service, nine of which have been passed in India." "And you are only captain," replied the other. "A pretty look-out for me, an ensign yet. You had better stop and give me a lift, by making a death vacancy. Do, Hughes, there's a good fellow." Captain Hughes laughed. "We shall have the route to-morrow; and if the march to Secunderabad be anything like what ours was from Madras, you won't want for death vacancies." "Was it such a terrible one?" asked the other, in a serious tone. "Terrible," replied Major Ashley, who had just left the table, and was lighting his third cigar since dinner, "why, a march up-country in India is always terrible work, as you'll find out before you are many weeks older. There was some dispute about our destination when we were ordered up here three years since," continued the Major, "and so we were detained until the hot weather set in, and cholera caught us up. The road we took may even yet be traced by the mounds of stones which cover our dead." "It was a fearful time," said Captain Hughes. "When we arrived in sight of the walls of yonder fort, the men were dropping fast, the sentries over the hospital had often to be changed from outside to inside the tent, the surgeon and assistant-surgeon had to be carried to see their sick, so worn were they with fatigue, while round our lines all night long the wailing of the camp followers was to be heard, for they perished by hundreds, the dead being found, when the grey light of morning broke, lying stiff and stark among the tent ropes." "But you reached the fort at last?" asked the Ensign. "Yes, we did reach it at last, didn't we, Hughes?" answered Major Ashley. "Do you remember the day an orderly rode into our lines, bearing an order from General Black Jack, as we used to call him, forbidding us to enter the fort; and how, for the sake of doing something, we marched short marches daily round yonder walls, until at last our colonel saw that the men were growing mutinous, and told Black Jack that he would storm the fort if not allowed to enter?"