"If Ernslie's tormentor spared his son, it must have been through some lingering regard for the dead mother, or some soft memory of the love he once bore her, and Ernslie was thankful that Philip escaped, for the lad was passionate and resentful, and had vowed to his father in secret that he would 'yet serve out the sergeant-major.'
"One morning, long before daybreak, we were on the march towards the province of Ajmir, where a noted rebel, Hossein Ali, was at the head of a great force. We had endured the most unparalleled heat; for days the sky had been as a sheet of heated brass above our heads, and the cracked and baked earth as molten iron under foot. Cases of sunstroke had been incessant, and many of our horses perished on the march.
"On this morning our thirst was excessive, for the tanks of a temple on which we had relied for water had become dry in the night, and the bheesties, or water-carriers, attached to the regiment, had deserted to Hossein Ali, and most of us were without liquid of any kind in our canteens.
"Among others situated thus was Sergeant Ernslie, who had been on patrol duty until the last moment. His son Philip was the orderly of the colonel, and while that officer's horse was getting a drink, he had contrived to fill his canteen from the bucket, and held it invitingly to Ernslie, just as the corps filed past, for the colonel had not yet mounted. Agonized as he was with thirst, to resist the temptation was impossible; so Ernslie galloped to where his son stood, a hundred yards distant or so, near the hut of palm-leaves which had formed the colonel's quarters.
"'To your troop, Sergeant Ernslie! back to your troop, sir!' cried the sergeant-major, in a voice of thunder.
"Ernslie heard the voice of his enemy, but still rode towards his son, and took a long draught from his canteen before turning his horse and galloping back to his troop.
"'How dare you leave the ranks when on the line of march?' resumed Pivett, heedless in his fury that this was interfering with me. 'Fall in with the quarter guard!' he added, in his most bullying tone; 'and consider yourself under arrest!'
"'I shall do neither one nor the other,' replied Ernslie, trembling with passion. 'I am under the orders of the captain of the troop—not yours. Keep your own place, or, by heaven, I shall make you!'
"And in his just anger, Ernslie was rash enough to shake his sword with the point towards Pivett—an unmistakable threat. So the colonel was compelled to place him under arrest, in the face of the whole regiment.
"'At last you have fixed me, sergeant-major!' said he, calmly, but bitterly, as he sheathed his sword, and turned to the rear; 'but if you look for your true character, you will find it in the "Military Dictionary."'