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"A FRENCHMAN'S GRATITUDE"
91

Finnigan with his men ready for any emergency. Close to the river bank, within four hundred paces of the outpost, stood a small mosque, its slender crescent-crowned minaret shooting up gracefully from amid the dark foliage by which it was surrounded.

"There's a jham yonder, sorr," said Sergeant Finnigan, a fine old fellow, who had put Charlie Holroyd through his facings when he first joined the 35th, and had been my father's orderly in days of yore. "A jham, your honour, full of Mammyluks, I'm afther thinkin'."

"Very cautiously we made our way down the sand-hills."

"I don't see her, Finnigan," rejoined Holroyd, looking in the direction pointed out. "Where is she?"

"The clump of trees hides her, sorr," answered the sergeant; "but she's there shure enough. Does your honour think they're the Mammyluks?"

"We'll hope so, Finnigan, but I have my doubts," said Holroyd. "Tom," he added, after a moment's hesitation, "let you and I creep down nearer the river, and