Never had troops less to do than we had, for the six months or so we afterwards remained in the country; and time hung wretchedly on the hands of some of us. Now that Bill was gone, I had no comrade with whom I cared to associate; and, as you may think, I often didn't know what to do with myself. After all our fears and regrets, master, our colonel recovered, and, one morning, about four months after the action, came ashore to see us. We were sadly pestered with flies, master. I have seen, I am sure, a bushel of them on the top of our tent at once. They buzzed all night by millions round our noses, and many a plan did we think of to get rid of them; but, after destroying hosts on hosts they still seemed as thick as before. I had fallen on a new scheme this morning. I placed some sugar on a board, and surrounded it with gunpowder; and, when the flies had settled by thousands on the sugar, I fired the powder by means of a train, and the whole fell dead on the floor of the tent. I had just got a capital shot, when up came the colonel, and sat down beside me. 'I wish to know,' he said, 'all you can tell me about Bill Whyte; you were his chief friend and companion, I have heard, and are acquainted with his early history. Can you tell me ought of his parentage.' 'Nothing of that, colonel,' I said; 'and yet I have known Bill almost ever since he knew himself.' And so, master, I told him all that I knew; how Bill had been first taken to us by my mother; of the purse of gold she had brought with her, which had kept us all so merry; and of the noble spirit he had shown among us when he grew up. I told him, too, of some of Bill's early recollections; of the scarlet dress trimmed with silver, which had been brought to his mind by the sergeant's coat the first day he wore it; of the gentleman and lady, too, whom he remembered to have lived with; and of the supposed resemblance he had found between the former and the colonel. The colonel, as I went on, was strangely agitated, master. He held an open letter in his hand, and seemed, every now and then, to be comparing particulars; and, when I mentioned Bill's supposed recognition of him, he actually started from off his seat. 'Good Heavens!' he exclaimed, 'why was I not brought acquainted with this before!' I explained the why, master, and told him all about Captain Turpic; and he left me with, you may be sure, no very favourable opinion of the captain. But I must now tell you, master, a part of my story which I had but from hearsay.