'Poor Malcolm—poor Malcolm!' said Roland; 'what dire news this will be for his old mother at Dunnimarle. This event gives you your company in the corps——'
'Don't speak of it!' interrupted Mostyn, with something like a groan; 'I would to Heaven that poor Skene had never given me such a chance.'
The last days of January saw Earle's column making a sweep with fire and sword of the district in which poor Colonel Stewart and his companions had been murdered; and on the 2nd of February it had reached a country beyond all conception or description wild, and quite uninhabited.
The sufferings of Earle's troops were considerably severe now. The faces and the knees of the Highlanders were skinned by the chill air at night and the burning sun by day; while, in addition, there were insects in the sand, so minute as to be almost invisible, yet they got into the men's ragged clothing, and bit hands and feet so that they were painfully swollen.
On the 9th of February Earle's column reached Kirbekan, near the island of Dulka, seventy miles above Merawi, which is a peninsular district of Southern Nubia, and the enemy, above 2,000 strong, led by Moussa Abu Hagil, Ali Wad Aussein, and other warlike Sheikhs, and chiefly composed of the guilty Monnassir tribe, some Robatats and a force of Dervishes from Berber, were known to be in position at no great distance; thus a battle was imminent.
Ere it took place Roland Lindsay and his friend Elliot were destined to hear some startling news from home. At this time all papers and parcels for the column got no further than Dongola, but a few letters from the rear were brought up, and the mail-bag contained one of importance for Roland, and several for his friend Dick Mostyn.
Lounging on the grass, under a mimosa tree, with a cigarette between his teeth, and with just the same lazy, debonnair bearing with which he had taken in many a girl at home in pleasant England, lay Dick Mostyn reading his missives. Some he perused with a quiet, insouciant smile; they were evidently from some of the girls in question. Others he tore into small shreds and scattered on the breeze; they were duns. How pleasant it was to dispose of them thus on the bank of the Nile!
Roland, a little way apart, was perusing his solitary letter.
It was from Mr. M'Wadsett, the W.S., dated several weeks back, from 'Thistle Court, Thistle Street, Edinburgh' (how well Roland remembered the gloomy place under the shadow of St. Andrew's Church, and the purpose of his last visit there!); and it proved quite a narrative, and one of the deepest interest to him.
His uncle, Sir Harry, was dead, and his daughter Hester was going forth into the world as a companion or governess. (Dead! thought Roland; poor old Sir Harry!—and Hester, alone now—oh, how he longed to be with her—to comfort and protect her!)