The water party emptied the last pakhals of water into the canvas tanks they had placed in the picquet, and departed for home with their string of mules in the wake of the pioneers, who were starting down the long sloping ridge back towards the river, dead ground to the enemy at present.

As the last loads were thrown into the picquet, the subaltern signalled to the O.C. covering troops in front that the picquet was ready. A few minutes later he saw their reserve company move down towards him and deploy into line on one of the nearer ridges. He put as many men as he could fit along the north and east faces of the picquet, and set every one else to pile up rough head cover of sandbags as quickly as they could on the unfinished walls. There was a good deal of noise on the right. Evidently the enemy were getting impatient.

Five, ten, fifteen minutes passed the walls on the rear faces were mostly topped now with piled sandbags built into rough notches.

Suddenly the foremost line of covering troops in front started to run back, and from away below he heard the guns, and the bursting shell leaped inte life in front. The covering troops were withdrawing all right now. On they came, On they came, passed through the reserve company at a steady double and took up a position on the edge of the nullah in front of him, while the reserve company broke into a rattle of rifle fire. The fire to the right

redoubled, and the dull reverberations of bombs broke on the air, accompaniment to the "phutt-phutt" of the whitewreathed shrapnel ahead.

Four laden stretchers passed

him looking downwards. Then the reserve company, now become the foremost line, started coming away in bunches of swift-moving men, and just as these reached the nullah the remainder came away, running fast now. Once a man dropped. The men nearest halted, flung themselves round and opened fire, and two seized the prostrate figure, heaved it up and stumbled onwards again, the bullets spattering the rocks around them and the dragging figure with the hanging head. But they stumbled into cover where A and B Companies had spread out, and the rest of the group came after them spread out, and running fast, heads down, as men run in heavy rain or hail.

Major Miles came up with his runners and signallers near the picquet and called up the people on the right, whence two more stretchers coming away followed by a couple of walking wounded.

were

The fire from in front was growing heavier, and bullets splashed continually against the picquet wall. A runner dashed up to the major with a message. Reading it, he turned to the adjutant.

"Tell A Company they'll have to hang on 8 bit. Browne's got some more casualties to get away and no more stretchers. Send him up all you can find.”

The adjutant rushed off, and presently three men went off carrying a blanket stretcher apiece, disappearing into the bushes near the orest-line where Browne's company lay, to reappear again five minutes later, four men to each sagging stretcher.

Farther away on the right flank a dumpy little Garhwali hove into sight carrying a wounded man on his back, Evidently stretchers were run ning short up there too. The little man stumbled slowly along, and presently dropped his burden and straightened himself, then, squatting down, hoisted the wounded man on to his back, and so onward again slowly. Then they fell all of a heap, and the watohing subaltern thought the rescuer was hit; but no, he scrambled to his feet again, hoisted up his burden onee more, and so away down the loose shale slope past the pioquet, down the path into safety.

You can't leave your wounded pals out to be cut up by Mahsuds if anything humanly possible can be done to get them

emerged from the bushes below the orest and made for the picquet, a little group in the centre dragging along a wounded man. The supporting troops on the right of the picquet opened rapid fire as the remainder of the company came leaping over the loose slipping stones down the hill at top speed, the rear brought up by an Indian officer with two dead men's rifles, and Browne himself, revolver in hand.

A rush of enemy whirled over the skyline behind them; the picquet Lewis gun yapped out, and a second later a salvo of shells burst round about the enemy, and 88 the smoke oleared away some of them could be seen tearing back with long strides over the skyline, three or four carrying either their own wounded or our dead to strip under cover. The gunners below were watching: "Bang-bang-wheuuu orump... or-r-rrump."

But as Browne came in, Miles asked "Where's Williams?"

"Out there," said Browne. "Got it through the neck over the hill-five men killed and three wounded trying to pull him in. Had to leave him in the end stone-dead, thank God." Browne's face was very white and grim.

The major swallowed twice before he spoke. Williams was Browne's best friend. "Dsorry, old man. You take your company straight down and out now. They won't follow beyond the picquet and we've plenty of people here. Tell your men they've put up a d-d good show,"

MOST people who have visited the magnificent seventeenthcentury quadrangle at Braningham School know that the famous Fags' Dormitory, commonly abbreviated into "Fags' Dor," or "Fags," lies on the left hand of the great gate, and on the first floor. Over the gateway itself is the Common-room of the Sixthform boys, and beyond that, to the right of the gate, the studies and bed-chambers of the same Olympian personages. These rooms together fill up the western wing of the quadrangle. At right angles to "Fags," and forming the southern wing, oome the three successive "dors " of the Lower, Middle, and Upper Fifth-form boys, and each "dor" communicates with the groundfloor by its own staircase; while the northern and eastern wings of the quadrangle are occupied by the Chapel, the Schoolhouse dining-hall, sundry schoolrooms, and the entrance to the Cloister Garth, Part of the ground-floor of the southern wing is taken up by the private rooms of the Master of the Schoolhouse, familiarly known as "Sohoolhouse Cad" -for the Headmaster, who is by right head of the Schoolhouse, lives in dignified state in a private house beyond Cloister Garth, and keeps a "oad" to perform for him the duty of looking after the hun

dred boys who inhabit the Schoolhouse. My readers will be kind enough to note that the word "cad" is not used in any offensive sense; in school phrase it merely means "one who performs the work of another -a Regent would be described at Braningham as "a King's oad." Mr Snow, or "Snorkins," the "cad" at the time of my tale, was a wise and popular master.

The interior arrangements of the four great dormitories are all upon the same plan: on one side of each is a row of little divisions with desks, not unlike the "toys" at Winchester, and on the other side a corresponding number of beds, washstands, and chests of drawers; ourtains supported on iron pillars conceal the row of beds in the daytime. In the centre on each side is a gap, and in these gaps stand, opposite to each other, a large fireplace and coal-box, and a large baize-covered table, with a few battered basket-chairs, which can always be carried across to the fireside. In "Fags," at least, whatever may be the custom in Lower, Middle, and Upper "Dors," it is in this central space that the twenty occupants do chiefly congregate. There la basse justice is administered (with the back of a long-handled bathbrush, the victim kneeling with his trousers tight on

the ancient coal-box) by the captain of fags; there the events of the day are discussed after evening school, oricket or football sides are made up, and plots are hatched. It is the Delphi, the oupaλós of fagdom, the centre of its earth. One of the first rules at the Schoolhouse is that no fag may, proprio motu, enter Lower, still less Middle or Upper Fifth "dors." It might almost be called an unnecessary rule, for no fag is likely to wish to enter those abodes of savage men, nor ever does 80 save when he is sent thither with a message by one of his lawful masters of the Sixth form; then, indeed, he is proteoted by privilege, and his person is as sacred as that of a herald in medieval, or an ambassador in modern, times: it would be the actual duty of a fag to sneak (indeed it would not be sneaking at all) if any Fifth-form boy laid hands on him while he was so fagging. A less easily upheld rule is that no Fifth-form boy might come into "Fags"; for, although standing at right angles to it, "Lower" is only separated from "Fags" by a narrow space into which open two little rooms inhabited by specimens of that strange sex known as Schoolmaids; in odd half-hours in the summer, when all doors are open and dormitory cricket in full swing, a ball from "Lower" is quite apt to cannon off into "Fags," and will then

usually be retrieved without soruple. "Fags" may not retrieve a ball from "Lower."

In truth, the enforcement of rules of this kind depends on the wisdom and strength of Sixth form; there have been times not so far back in the history of the Schoolhousethere was, in fact, such a time when my tale begins-when the boys from "Lower" would invade "Fags" in force, oust the lawful occupants from the seats by their own fireplace, and generally run riot. That was because the Olympians slept, and such invasion was always intensely resented by the little boys.

With their own lawful masters the relation of the occupants of "Fags" was much more cordial. As is well known, there are always twenty Sixth, and always twenty fags, a serf to each master. It is essentially a prædial serfdom, not a slavery: the labour-rents are not heavy, are fixed to definite hours, and cannot be increased ad voluntatem domini. Custom, the one real sovereign of all primitive and barbarous communities, is the surest protection of the fag. The Sixth may go into "Fags at all hours of the day, and indeed it is their duty (very ill-performed as a rule, for they treat it as a supreme bore) to patrol it occasionally. Each fag has also his appointed duties to perform in bis master's own study and in