that followed for that express purpose. As
Firelock landed, he found dead Frenchmen lying
within wash of the water. In a sand hollow,
where the 42nd had repulsed a charge of French
cavalry just after landing, the foot soldiers were
lying about among the dead horses. The
artillery, landing as quickly as the infantry, had
astonished the French, and helped to gain the
victory.

That night, as Firelock and his comrades,
after digging for water, lay wrapped in their
blankets on the sand, many of them discovered
that they were afflicted with what doctors call
"night blindness." By day they saw as well as
ever.

Firelock's march soon became laborious and
painful. The French cavalry harassed the men,
who were impeded in the deep sand through
which the cheery seamen dragged the guns. At
night each company due a well; the top soil
below the sand was the black deposit from the
river. Deeper still lay the oozy clay that
supplied the water.

About this time Firelock's regiment was
ordered for picket. But Firelock and twenty
more, who were night-blind, were placed in
bunches in the rear. When it was necessary
to move, a soldier was sent to guide them, holding
each other in a string. "If the enemy had
made a dash at us, then," thought the shrewd
Firelock, "we could neither have fought nor
escaped."

Between Aboukir castle and Alexandria,
Firelock's regiment was sent with the 90th to form
the advanced guard. They had no time to dig
water, but got a sup of rum, and left their
knapsacks with a guard. They soon joined with the
enemy, and a regular fight commenced near
Lake Mandy. The cavalry formed line just as
the 90th did, and did it quicker too, and charged.
The 90th left them alone till they were within
sword reach; they then opened, and the fire ran
from right to left with dreadful effect. The
cavalry instantly fell back, and many horses
ran away with empty and bloody saddles.
Now came Firelock's turn, for the enemy were
moving round with guns and dromedaries, hoping
to cut off the five hundred English by outflanking
and surrounding them. Firelock, like a brave,
religious man, confessed his sins in the words of
the 51st Psalm, and prepared for fighting.

At three hundred yards' distance only, the
enemy drove up two field-pieces, and opened
fire on Firelock and Co. One of the first balls
fired came, as our friend thought, straight at
him; it came skipping playfully along the sand
straight at Firelock, and meaning mischief.
Luckily for him, it grazed a small hillock of
rubbish a few yards in front, and then felled the
second file on his right. It struck the centre of
the left leg of the front rank man, passing clean
through it, and it tore away part of the rear
rank man's left calf, and drove a quantity of
small stones from the rubbish into the faces of
the soldiers and the lacerated limbs of the
wounded. Both the struck men died soon after.
"Perhaps but for the rubbish-heap the devil's toy
had struck me," thought Firelock, and thanked
God piously, as one of Cromwell's Ironsides
might have done.

The men were all eager to fire, as the French
were steadily advancing. The commanding
officer, seeing rising ground between his men
and the enemy, ordered them to stop till they
could see the Frenchmen's feet. This fire soon
silenced the artillery in front, till some marines
and Dillon's regiment could advance and drive
back the enemy. Already the officer of
Firelock's company was wounded, as well as the
commanding officer.

After firing twelve rounds, Firelock, in the act
of loading, was struck by a musket-ball in the
left side. It was close to the ribs and near the
pit of the stomach, and the force of the stroke
whirled him round on his heels. He was
stunned, too, and feeling great pain, stepped to
the rear, holding the place with his hands. He
then looked and found the skin unbroken, and
as he shook himself, the ball fell from his clothes
at his feet. That night at bivouac, Firelock had
time to look, and discovered that the ball had
passed through his coat, cut his waistcoat
between the second and third lower buttons; its
further progress had been stopped by a small
volume of Blair's Grave, which Firelock had in
his side-pocket. The corner binding was cut, and
the leaves all through bruised. The force with
which the ball struck this accidental breastplate
had wheeled Firelock round. He reflected that
if he had been standing square front, or one
inch nearer the right side, it would have been
fatal. Many of his comrades who had their
clothes cut and received contusions, attributed
it to the French not using the ramrod in loading,
which enabled them of course to fire with
great rapidity, but left the charge loose and
made the bullet go wavering and weak, so that
the bullet only bruised where it should have
pierced. This accounted for the tremendous
sustained fire of the French, and also for its not
being so destructive as was feared. As it was, in
this battle of Alexandria, Firelock's regiment
lost one hundred and twenty-five men, killed
and wounded.

From this point, Firelock's day-book branches
off into less interesting hospital incidents; and
so we leave him, in his old age, retired to a
cottage near Glasgow, long since vacated for a
narrower home.

Now Ready, price 4d.,
THE HAUNTED HOUSE,
Forming the CHRISTMAS NUMBER of ALL THE
YEAR ROUND; and containing the amount of two
ordinary numbers.