WINNING THE SPURS.

SHAW! if you believe all the gammon old Park

"PSHAW!

hurst talks, you'll make a pretty fool of yourself. Some of his fellows tell me he is always trying that kind of game on with any of our sort who are attached to his regiment." So spoke a stalwart sergeant of Lancers, who answered to the name of Jim Hoskins, to his companion a young corporal in the same regiment, as they were advancing from a place called Muttaree towards the banks of the Indus.

"Well, I do believe it, all the same. tleman when I see one

I know a gen

"Oh, of course! I forgot I was speaking to 'gentleman Jack'!" retorted the other with a sneer. Young John Blunt took no notice of the interruption, but went

on :

"Major Parkhurst is a gentleman, and I am perfectly sure he means what he says. I shall try for it, I know." These

"More ass you. Don't you see his game?

officers of native calvary are so awfully jealous of the honour of one another's regiments, that they will do any mortal thing to make the black fellows under their command fight better than those of any other corps;

and this Parkhurst has so few English officers and no sergeants of his own to set the example to his troopers, that he tries to gammon us with all sorts of promises so that we may rush at anything or everything, and so stir up the niggers to fight better than ever. That's what he's up to. But he don't take me in. I've always done my duty in action or out of action; and I'll be hanged if I、 do any more for any nigger-officer of them all!”

"But your duty in action is to do your very best, and Major Parkhurst asks no more, and yet promises a splendid prize for doing it. I mean 'to win my spurs—,' as he put it last night-or-”

"Perish in the attempt!' Out with it! That's the sort of balderdash used to draw down thundering cheers at the old Surrey Theatre when I was a boy; but it's out of date now."

"Or perish in the attempt!"" repeated John Blunt gravely: "I quite mean it-your Surrey experiences notwithstanding."

"That's a gay young cockerel!" laughed out the other, turning in his saddle to watch the advanced guard, with whom they were, spreading like a fan all over the dry, sandy, nullah-riven plain, seeking the enemy: "He's going 'to win spurs,' and the deuce knows what and all, with scarce a hair on his face and hardly a wound on his carcase; while a poor old trooper, like Jim Hoskins, is

only to do his duty, and take pot-luck for glory and prizemoney with the nigger rank and file!

"Now, Hoskins, you know I'm not such a fool as to try and 'cock' it over an old lancer like you

"Well, I ain't so very much older than you, when all's said and done," broke in the sergeant, who really was quite a young man, though some year or two older than John Blunt.

"I didn't mean old in years, but in the service and in our experience. Don't let us squabble. If we both do our best we shall both be rewarded properly-though hang reward! say I, as long as we have glory."

66

Ay, glory's all very well," said Hoskins thoughtfully, "but reward's uncommonly pleasant too. I wish to heavens we had our lances though. I don't feel comfortable in action with only a sword and a pair of pistols."

"Hullo!" shouted Blunt, rising in his stirrups, and peering eagerly away towards the extreme right of the skirmishing cavalry: "There's one of the black chaps. come to a dead point, like a spaniel! Let us gallop up and see what it is." They both set the splendid arabs they were riding in motion with a shake of the hand and a slight pressure of the knee, and galloped off in the direction Blunt had indicated.

The two English non-commissioned officers belonged

to the Queen's Lancers, then stationed in a distant part of India.

At the time (February, 1843), the East India Company were seriously considering the question whether they should not train all their native cavalry to ride with the long straight leg of the British dragoon, and it was determined to try the experiment on a small scale in one or two of the crack regiments. Hoskins and Blunt, the two best riders far and away that the Lancers could boast of, were detached on this duty to join the splendid native cavalry regiment, called the 'Bengal Tigers,' to instruct some twenty men or so in the new method; while engaged in this duty the Scinde war broke out, and the two were now in the field with the 'Tigers,' forming part of the small army, under Sir Charles Napier, that was advancing to attack the Ameers, or native princes of the country, who were supposed to be strongly posted somewhere between Muttaree, the Indus, and Hyderabad. The little force, barely 2,800 of all arms, with twelve guns, was made up of native regiments of infantry and cavalry, with the 22nd Royal Regiment a mere handful of men far below its proper strength; while the army of the Scinde Ameers was known to already amount to 22,000 men at least, with fifteen guns and 5,000 calvary, while large reinforcements of the same fierce Belchees were under

stood to be on the march to support their chieftains. Sir Charles Napier, that brave old warrior whom nothing could daunt, had encamped at Muttaree the evening before my story opens, and learning there of the immense bodies of men en route to oppose him, he determined to at once strike a blow lest the enemy should surround and overwhelm him by mere force of numbers. Accordingly he had struck his camp during the night, was well on his march by 4 a.m., on this day (the 17th February), and his cavalry scouts, as we have seen, were carefully 'feeling' their way far in advance of the main body of the army. The 'Bengal Tigers,' to which my two heroes were attached, had been selected for this most responsible duty; but as Major Parkhurst was very short indeed of English officers, he wisely availed himself of the services of the two non-commissioned officers, both of whom had seen plenty of active service in India, and they were now in command of the foremost scouts; while the main body of the 'Tigers supported them in detached troops, scattered at wide intervals all along the front of the infantry columns. Major Parkhurst and his few officers had, of course, to remain with that portion of their regiment which was in reserve, and thus it happened that Blunt and Hoskins were left pretty much to their own devices.

"Well, what is it?" they asked almost simultaneously,