'I have gone too far, too far, and now may lose him altogether, and after all—after all!' she exclaimed, with genuine dismay.
CHAPTER IX.
'THE ROUTE!'
It was so; those comfortless wooden wigwams in the lines of the North Camp, which had known the Rifles for so many months, now, in the words of the Book of Job, knew them no more; and nothing of the smart but sombre battalion now remained there save a few soldiers—recruits whose training was not complete, or men whose time of service was nearly expired.
The mess had been broken up, its massive and trophied service of plate packed up and placed in the charge of Goring, who had command of the fragment of the battalion left behind. The senior captain of a regiment was never employed on this duty, as, for obvious reasons, his presence at headquarters is always desirable.
On the eventful morning of their march from camp the gallant battalion of the 'Prince Consort's Own' scarcely knew themselves in their new 'Ashanti toggery,' as they called it, which was furnished from the stores at Pimlico, and consisted, for each man, of a grey tweed tunic, resembling a shooting-jacket, suitable for the climate, with ample pockets; belt and trousers of the same material, and rough canvas leggings; the head-dress, a light grey Indian helmet, perhaps the first time such a thing had been worn on British ground.
Soldier-like looked the Rifles in their black belts and their heavy marching order, with knapsacks, haversacks, great-coats, canteens, and water-bottles.
If there was little of the pomp and circumstance of war in this costume, by repetition in numbers and by uniformity in the mass it did not seem unimposing; and if splendour was wanting, certainly enthusiasm was not, and loud and hearty were the cheers that rang along the Lines from one street of huts to another, as the grey column, preceded by the bands of several corps, began its short march to the railway which was to convey it to Southampton just as the red sun of November, the pioneer of winter, shone out through clouds that had a ragged and dreary look in a grey and gloomy sky.
The moorlands around Aldershot were odorous with withered bracken, and a stray heron might have been seen, perhaps, at Fleet Pond, motionless amid the water as if sculptured in bronze; in the adjacent thickets the woodsman was going forth, armed with axe and bill-hook, his dog close behind him, heedless of war and its accompaniments, pausing, perhaps, as he heard in the distance on the ambient air the crash of the brass bands that led the Rifles on the first part of the long route to terrible Ashanti, or it might be the chorus of hundreds of manly voices shouting 'Cheer, boys, cheer,' on the wind of the early morning, but he was thinking only of the bundles of faggots on his shoulder, the crackling fire, the clean-swept hearth, the kettle on the hob, and the trim little wife that awaited him at home.
Bevil Goring was accompanying the battalion to Southampton to see the last of his friends, and to 'kill,' as he thought, 'another day of suspense,' the long and empty days of waiting with gloomy forebodings.