The glare and heat of the desert had died away as the sand gave up its sunstroke, and the heavens had cleared of haze, so that Rigel twinkled to Betelgeux, and Betelgeux across to Aldebaran, and a great peace lay on the land. Away among the camps the bugles had sounded Retreat, since there was nothing to hide by silence, and the longdrawn final notes had rolled over the dunes. Whip behind!" "Whip be... hind!" Whip be.. hind!" On the Canal a passing ship was lighting up the banks with the glare of her cluster light, that was reflected far inland, and prevented the outlying piquets from feeling lonely.

Apparently the night passed quietly enough at the outpost of Muhammad Ismael. By early dawn a strong wind had risen, and had set the sand a-trailing. The cavalry piquet that was to relieve Muhammad Ismael arrived with difficulty at the high dune, and duly took over the post. No Bedouin watchers had been seen. Muhammad Ismael and party had rolled their cloaks and marched away despite the heavy sand, that was drawing sparks from the steel riflebarrels. The ball of the rising sun showed East and West clear enough, and the infantry

That was the last seen of Havildar Muhammad Ismael and his nine Punjabi Muhammadans.

The sandstorm increased, and obscured even the guiding ball of the rising sun. By 9 A.M. the company commander wondered where they had got to. to. They had not arrived by 9.30, and he called up the neighbouring posts, but there was still no sign. Had Havildar Muhammad Ismael, always a careful Moslem of religious habits,deserted? Had that

10

no

roll of the drum ecclesiastic been reverberating in his ears under that quiet and soldierlike demeanour Hardly-yet 9.30 10.30 news from neighbouring piquets and outposts, only an orderly from the cavalry, who reported that the party had last been seen trudging east at 7 A.M. in a sand-storm which had much increased, so that now at the outpost you could see nothing and hear less.

The colonel of the Punjabis looked unutterable things, and well he might, for the honour of a regiment is as the honour of a mistress. The Pathans were different, but these lads from Jhelum bank and Salt Range scar? Never! Jamais! Kubhi Nahin! Ghair Mumkin ! There had been foolish talk at

Disappointed and dead to the world, they sat down at the foot, and wrapping ears, nose, and eyes in their puggaries, remained a-crouch, too weary and helpless even to set a watch. They were aroused a bit later, to find themselves surrounded by a mixed force of some fifty mounted Bedouin and Turkish cavalry. Resistance was out of the question, and they could only give up their arms. The enemy had some camels with them, and the prisoners were told to climb thereon. The whole party then marched away into the east, and eventually arrived at Nekl, the abandoned Egyptian station that was used by some of the mounted troops of Kress von Kressenstein's "Desert Force," which Djemal Pasha had placed under his orders as a reward for the energy he had shown in tackling the military difficulties of Sinai. Orders soon came to the commandant at Nekl to send the prisoners through to Beersheba, where was the base.

On arrival at Beersheba, they had a meal and a short rest, and then were taken before a German officer. The Turkish Army in Palestine had several German officers with them in various staff capacities, as well as certain German specialists and technical troops, while later on came the Yilderim or Lightning organisations of actual fighting troops. It was a Prussian officer of the General Staff before whom the ten Indian Moslems were brought.

An interpreter being avail

The havildar thought for a bit, and then made answer: "This is a political war, and not a religious war. Therefore we remain with our own units, and observe our enlistment oath and our faith with the salt we eat."

"That may be," said the Prussian, and he shut his mouth with a scowl. "There are ten Turkish uniforms in the corner there. I will give you five minutes to put them on or be shot as deserters from Islam, whose lives are forfeit.'

The havildar looked at the Prussian, and perhaps wondered what such as he had to do with the officers he knew. His eye perhaps ran wild for a minute, and then his mind took charge, that faithful patient mind of the Indian soldier.

"May I have speech alone with my comrades?"

"Three minutes," came the pitiless reply. "March them out!"

And those ten men of the Jhelum and the Salt Range held converse one with another for a brief space.

Can we imagine the scene

in little Beersheba, Father Abraham fed his flocks? Just a little town, where the Turks quite recently had essayed to make a centre from which they could control the Bedouin. A town square, with an office and a hospital and a post-office, a row or two of blue gums waving in the morning breeze, with rolling veldt all round, green for a while in spring, but brown the rest of the year, with now and again a dust-devil pirouetting widershins down the road. A little tin-roofed dorp, for all the world like Ladysmith on a smaller scale, with Arab sheep on the sky-line, a park of Turkish lorries in the square, where the Cape carts would be, and a row of cannon.

Then the drama of the moment, the tender ruth of the Prussian, the little group of Indian soldiers, and a ring of Turkish guards, impassive, oblivious after their kind of any thing but orders. It was apparently a unanimous little group; one can imagine that some one perhaps said "Jo Hukm," which being interpreted means, "whatever authority," in this case the havildar, <6 orders.'

Then with great dignity the havildar will have said, "Tell the kaptan that we are ready"; and the Prussian would have said, "March them in."

The party would have filed in and formed in line, or perhaps clustered together as the

And then-fame has blazoned the answer, I hope, as jewels that on the forefinger of time sparkle for ever. The party, soldierlike while in extremis, drew themselves up, and there rang forth as fine a challenge to a cruel tyrant as the world has ever heard

The Prussian lifted his hand, and they were led out through the crowd of fierce flushed faces thronging the door, and a volley wrote their simple village names on the great book of Fate. I cannot refrain from quoting that wonderful verse from Malachi that always comes to my mind whenever I hear of some deed of sacrifice; it was the favourite verse of an old Highland officer who taught it to me: "And they shall be mine, said the Lord of Hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels."

Revenge and bitterness is bad for any one to harbour, but the story of those lads cheering for their King and being marched to the firing wall is enough to rouse all the devils of hate that can enter a man's heart. And Mr Breasted, who told it me, felt the infinite glory and pathos of it all as keenly as any British officer.

OUR friend, René Guizet, the little journalist of 'Le Grand Bavard,' sat himself down at the third table on the right in the Café Provençal with the air of one afflicted by a great weariness of the soul.

One remembers without mirth, he said unsmiling, a particular quotation from that great writer, Boileau, who knew too much about the world ever to find happiness in it. You will, perhaps, recognise the passage:

'Le monde est plein de fous et qui n'en veut pas voir,

Doit se renfermer seul et casser son miroir.'

Yes, mes amis, that is very true. The foolishness of this world is something remarkable, and one realises presently that the foolishness of little great men to whom we arch our backs in empty homage is in no way either more or less remarkable than the folly of our good little selves.

You ask me why I should be so melancholy that even the thought of many bocks has no power to chase le cafard from my foolish brain? One grants that I am not usually so afflicted, farceur that I am. But consider this, mes amis, then share my sorrow: I have just become possessed of the greatest story of my career,

and such are the attendant circumstances that I dare not publish it! Quelle guigne, hein? I knew I should have your sympathy. Yes, I have written that story-composed it word for word in imagination, and not a word of it have I set down on paper. Not a line of it shall ever be set down.

Does that awaken curiosity! Your eyes look questions. Good! Dare I, then, take advantage of my position to wreck the Government ? To make authority bow a shamed head before the derisive laughter of two worlds? Pull the trigger that would loose an international complication which might fall to earth in some place as disastrous as unforeseen? No, even being myself, René Guizet, I dare not, and it breaks my heart to know that my inky fingers must refrain. Yet I shall offer myself this consolation. Mes amis, I swear you to secrecy, and then I tell you this story which shall never be whispered along the boulevards-a story which, if it were published, would for ever exalt the name of Le Grand Bavard.'

But the affair was so simple yet so far-reaching in its effects! So little happens, and that so little creates an amazing situation which has power to move