"'Twas a most harassing affair, I assure you."
"Now for an Egyptian story," thought Ronald, observing the major composing his vast bulk more easily in his saddle.
"It was sad work, Mr. Lisle, marching over dusty plains of burning sand; the scorching sun glaring fiercely above us in a cloudless sky, blistering and stripping the skin from our bare legs and faces; while our parched throats were dry and cracked, but not a drop of water could be found to moisten them with in the accursed desert through which we marched. Our shoes were worn out completely, and the hot rough sand burned our feet to the bone; and I assure you we were in a most miserable state when we halted among the mosques and spires, the gaudy kiosks and flowery gardens of Grand Cairo,—a place which at a distance appears like a city of candlesticks and inverted punch-bowls. Old Wallace, the quarter-master, (a queer old carle he was,) was sent about to provide shoes for the corps, who, by his exertions, were in a short time all supplied with elegant pairs of Turkish slippers, embroidered and laced, and turned up at the toes. Droll-looking brogues they were, certainly, for the Gordon Highlanders, in their gartered hose and filleadh-begs; yet, certes, they were better than nothing. But I was not so lucky as the rest. In all Grand Cairo there was not a pair of their canoe-looking slippers to be found which would suit me,—my foot, you see, is a size above a young lady's. And so I might have marched the next day in my tartan hose, had not Osmin Djihoun, a shoemaker, (whose shop occupied the very site of the great temple of Serapis, which was destroyed by Theophilus the patriarch,—as you, having just come from school, will remember,—) undertaken to produce me a pair of shoes by next morning under terror of the bastinado and bow-string, which the Sheik-el-Beled, or governor of the city, threatened duly to administer if he failed to do."
"Well, major; and your next day's march passed over in comfort?" asked Ronald, who had listened with impatience to this story.
"Comparatively so. Another affair I could tell you of, in which Ludowick Lisle bore a part. It happened at the Diamond Isle. The Diamond Isle, you must know, is a place at the mouth of the new port of Iskandrieh, as the Arabs call the city of Alexander the Great. Old Ludowick and I——"
"The baggage has all passed, major. You will scarcely overtake your command by sunset, if you wait to tell us that story; it is very long, but nevertheless, very interesting. I have heard it some dozen times."
"A good story," replied Campbell composedly, "cannot be told too often. Therefore, the Diamond Isle—" But I will not insert here the worthy major's story, which he obstinately related, and with, all the tedious prolixity and feeling of entire self-satisfaction that every old soldier displays in the narration of some personal adventure.
"By the by, Stuart," said he, as he concluded, "have you any thing in the pig-skin I see lying near the fire yonder?"
"Not a drop; otherwise it should have been offered long ago. I am sorry 'tis empty; but not expecting visitors, the last drain was squeezed out last night."
"Carajo! Well, Lisle, and how are all the depot? How's old Inverugie, and Rosse of Beinderig,—the Barba-Roxo, as the dons used to call him?"