Ever since the Crimea he had been upon the world's half-pay list,
as he had once said to General Feversham, and what with that and the
recollection of a certain magical season before the Crimea, he had
looked forward to old age as an approaching friend. To-night, however,
he prayed that he might live just long enough to welcome back Muriel
Graham's son with his honour redeemed and his great fault atoned.
CHAPTER VII
THE LAST RECONNAISSANCE
"No one," said Durrance, and he strapped his field-glasses into the
leather case at his side.
"No one, sir," Captain Mather agreed.
"We will move forward."
The scouts went on ahead, the troops resumed their formation, the two
seven-pounder mountain-guns closed up behind, and Durrance's detachment
of the Camel Corps moved down from the gloomy ridge of Khor Gwob,
thirty-five miles southwest of Suakin, into the plateau of Sinkat. It
was the last reconnaissance in strength before the evacuation of the
eastern Soudan.
All through that morning the camels had jolted slowly up the gulley of
shale between red precipitous rocks, and when the rocks fell back,
between red mountain-heaps all crumbled into a desolation of stones.
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