CHAPTER XVIII.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XI, Issue 5, 25 May 1883, Page 7

CHAPTER XVIII.

" I wißh yon had done as much half an hour ago," said Maurice rather coolly, " for we had really missed our way. You disappeared very rapidly." " Disappeared 1 Maurice. Where should I disappear? I have not left my office this evening." "Do you mean to say you were not on horseback in that valley east of the camp an ago hour or less ? " asked Maurice, with the air of one who bad not been well treated. 11 In the Valley f Do you mean the Tchernaya ? " 11 If that be the name you give it, yes." " I assure you upon my word and honour I was not," said Nolan earnestly. "As I have said, I have not been out of the tent this evening." " I really thought you were," said Maurice, glancing at Harold, in whose eye he saw the same strange expression that he knew to be in his own. •' But the indications are, from present reports, that we shall all be probably there to-morrow, for the Russians are menacing us from that direction. But to-morrow caff speak for itself. For the present, now. What will you have to drink ? Whatever they may suffer elsewhere, we are not unprovided here." The two friends were not indisposed to accept his hospitality, and the conversation for some hours passed pleasantly, so that it was long after midnight when they separated. With much difficulty the two officers reached their tent. " Maurice," said Harold, as they sat at the fire and pulled off hoots preparatory to throwing themselves on their beds for the xright, " I am not particularly superstitious, but I confess I am strangely impressed with the apparition of that horseman to-night." " Just the very thing I was thinking of myself," said Maurice. " The whole business is certainly incomprehensible to me." 11 It was Nolan's face certainly— strange and distorted, but certainly his." " I hope there's no danger accruing to him," said Maurice reflectively. " I hope not. We have lost a good many of our officers since we came. But I Bhould regret any harm to him, worst of all." " And I, too, for many reasons." " Well, thank Heaven and Briney for our comfortable beds, and that we are not sleeping in this confounded puddle underfoot," said Harold, as he threw himself on his camp bed, and was soon fast asleep.