I climbed on deck again and spoke to a risaldar.  He spoke to Colonel Kirby.  Watching from below, I saw Colonel Kirby nod—­thus, like a bird that takes an insect; and he went and spoke to the captain of the ship.  Presently there was consultation, and a call for volunteers.  The whole regiment responded.  None, however, gave me credit for the thought.  I think that risaldar accepted praise for it, but I have had no opportunity to ask him.  He died in Flanders.

We went down and carried coal as ants that build a hill, piling it on the iron floor faster than the stokers could use it, toiling nearly naked like them lest we spoil our uniforms.  We grew grimy, but the ship shook, and the water boiled behind us.  None of the other ships was able to overtake us, although we doubted not they all tried.

There grew great good will between us and the stokers.  We were clumsy from inexperience, and they full of laughter at us, but each judged the spirit with which the other labored.  Once, where I stood directing near the bunker door, two men fell on me and covered me with coal.  The stokers laughed and I was angry.  I had hot words ready on my tongue, but a risaldar prevented me.

“This is their trade, not ours,” said he.  “Look to it lest any laugh at us when the time for our own trade comes!” I judged that well spoken, and remembered it.

There came at last a morning when the sun shone through jeweled mist—­a morning with scent in it that set the horses in the hold to snorting—­a dawn that smiled, as if the whole universe in truth were God’s.  A dawn, sahib, such as a man remembers to judge other dawns by.  That day we came in sight of France.

Doubtless you suppose we cheered when we saw Marseilles at last.  Yet I swear to you we were silent.  We were disappointed because we could see no enemy and hear no firing of great guns!  We made no more commotion than the dead while our ship steamed down the long harbor entrance, and was pushed and pulled by little tugs round a corner to a wharf.  A French war-ship and some guns in a fort saluted us, and our ship answered; but on shore there seemed no excitement and our hearts sank.  We thought that for all our praying we had come too late.

But the instant they raised the gangway a French officer and several British officers came running up it, and they all talked earnestly with Colonel Kirby on the upper bridge—­we watching as if we had but an eye and an ear between us.  Presently all our officers were summoned and told the news, and without one word being said to any of us we knew there was neither peace as yet, nor any surpassing victory fallen to our side.  So then instantly we all began to speak at once, even as apes do when sudden fear has passed.