'Not at all—but how came you here?'
'To take command of your detachment, when Serjeant Mac Ildhui reported your lamentable demise, and we had the big drum covered respectably up with crape, and funeral knots tied on our sword-hilts. We are to march to-morrow, so had you been a few hours later, we had been off for Stamboul.'
'Fortunate!' said I, with a glance at Callum; 'but you must delay your march a little time, Jack. I have a small expedition cut out for you—'
'Of a warlike nature?'
'Yes.'
'And I have some news for you.'
'Indeed!'
'We are both gazetted Lieutenants, vice Cameron and Moray, dead—one of wounds at Sebastopol, the other of cholera at Scutari—poor fellows! So we have two commissions to wet—I, yours—and you, mine. I have another box of cheroots and some prime Cavendish, with a jar of Kirkissa wine. Come along—I'll hear all your news in my room—'
'And the Yuze Bashi—how is he?'
'Oh, a most unamiable old fellow—in the sick-list still, having been powdered and pilled by a Jew Hakim, till he cannot move.'