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80 evident, for we saw no more of Eugene de Vignes in Messina; though we were destined to meet him again elsewhere.

CHAPTER II

DEPARTURE FROM MESSINA—LANDING IN EGYPT—FIRST SUCCESSES—REVERSE AT ROSETTA—OCCUPATION OF EL HAMET—SIEGE OF ROSETTA COMMENCED

sang, or rather shouted, Lieutenant Patrick Cantillon of the light company, as he burst into our quarters one hot afternoon, a few weeks subsequent to my adventure on the convent road.

"Tom, ye lazy divil! is it sleepin' ye are?" And he caught me a whack on the shoulder that nearly knocked me out of my chair.

"Don't make such a confounded row, Paddy!" I exclaimed irritably; for I had been indulging in a siesta, and this "rude awakening" startled me not a little. "Why the deuce can't you come in quietly?"

"Come in quietly, bedad!—hark to him!" cried my brother sub, capering round the room. "Sure, man, am I not ready to jump out of me skin!"

"Then I wish you'd jump out of it somewhere else," I retorted. "What's the matter with you?"

"Listen while I tell ye, alannah," said Paddy, coming to an anchor on my camp-bed. "May-be ye know that some six years ago we kicked the French out of Egypt, and put the Turks in possession of Alexandria and other towns on the Egyptian coast. Now Boney has humbugged the Sultan to enter into an alliance with France;