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Rh price the cross, with us a-grillin' like two—kippers, 'ere on this sizzlin' rock?"

"If we only trust—"

"Yah! You gospel wallahs is all alike. You give me the bleedin' sick, wiv your trust and bloody faif . We 'ad faif and trust in our bleedin' officer; an' 'ere we walks plumb into this nullah, wiv the Turks pottin' us from every rock, till there's only me an' you an' poor ole Perkins 'ere, waitin' till some sniper sends us West. Arf the Turkish harmy between us an' Abu Saida, an' you tell me to trust.

"If Gawd knows we're 'ere, why don't 'e stretch out 'is hand, an' bloody well get us aht of it; or at least go arsty wiv the 'eat of the ruddy sun."

The other did not answer. His long, lean figure, asprawl on the rock, looked like some fantastic mannikin, thrown carelessly down, its part played out. The spidery supports of telescope and heliograph looked too tenuous to be real. The squat gun was like some great toy beetle, the stumpy tripod fixed firmly in the fissured rock giving it a maimed, one-sided appearance, as if one of its legs had been torn off in the drama just played.

The cockney continued, after a brief pause. His voice was low and far-away, the monotonous sing-song showing that he talked as much for his own satisfaction, as for the other's ears.