“Fifty of the best, with fifty rounds each, to parade at the gate in half an hour,” he said.  “Bruce to accompany me, you to remain in command here.  All who can, to wear rubber-soled shoes, others to go barefoot or bandage their boots with putties over cardboard or paper.  No man likely to cough or sneeze is to go.  Luminous-paint discs to be served out to half a dozen.  No rations, no water,—­just shirts, shorts and bandoliers.  Nothing white or light-coloured to be worn.  Put a strong outpost, all European, under Corporal Faggit on the hill, and double all guards and sentries.  Shove sentry-groups at the top of the Sudder Bazaar, West Street and Edward Road.—­You know all about it....  I’ve got a good thing on.  There’ll be a lot of death about to-night, if all goes well.”

Half an hour later Captain Bruce called his company of fifty picked men to “attention” as Colonel Ross-Ellison approached, the gate was opened and an advance-guard of four men, with four flankers, marched out and down the road leading to the open country.  Two of these wore each a large tin disc painted with luminous paint fastened to his back.  When these discs were only just visible from the gate a couple more disc-adorned men started forth, and before their discs faded into the darkness the remainder of the party “formed fours” and marched after them, all save a section of fours which followed a couple of hundred yards in the rear, as a rear-guard.  In silence the small force advanced for an hour, passed some cross-roads, and then Colonel Ross-Ellison, who had joined the advance-guard, signalled a halt and moved away by himself to the right of the road.

In the shadow of the trees, the moon having risen, Captain Bruce ordered his men to lie down, announcing in a whisper that he would have the life of anyone who made a sound or struck a match.  This was known to be but half in jest, for the Captain was a good disciplinarian and a man of his word.

Save for the occasional distant bark of the village-dogs, the night was very still.  Sitting staring out into the moon-lit hazy dusk in the direction in which his chief had disappeared, Captain John Bruce wondered if he were really one of a band of armed men who hoped shortly to pour some two and a half thousand bullets into other men, really a soldier fighting and working and starving that the Flag might fly, really a primitive fighting-man with much blood upon his hands and an earnest desire for more—­or whether he were not a respectable Professor who would shortly wake, beneath mosquito-curtains, from a very dreadful dream.  How thin a veneer was this thing called Civilization, and how unchanged was human nature after centuries and centuries of——­

Colonel Ross-Ellison appeared.

“Bring twenty-five men and follow me.  Hurry up,” he said quietly, and, a minute later, led the way from the high-road across country.  Five minutes marching brought the party, advancing in file, to the mouth of a nullah which ran parallel with the road.  Along this, Colonel Ross-Ellison led them, and, when he gave the signal to halt, it was seen that they were behind a high sloping bank within fifty yards of the high-road.