Pringle died to-day." He was the third soldier to succumb.

It seemed to me their fate was a hard one.

To die, down in that wretched place, to be rolled in a blanket and buried on those desert shores, with nothing but a heap of stones to mark their graves.
The adjutant of the battalion read the burial service, and the trumpeters stepped to the edge of the graves and sounded "Taps," which echoed sad and melancholy far over those parched and arid lands.

My eyes filled with tears, for one of the soldiers was from our own company, and had been kind to me.
Jack said: "You mustn't cry, Mattie; it's a soldier's life, and when a man enlists he must take his chances." "Yes, but," I said, "somewhere there must be a mother or sister, or some one who cares for these poor men, and it's all so sad to think of." "Well, I know it is sad," he replied, soothingly, "but listen! It is all over, and the burial party is returning." I listened and heard the gay strains of "The girl I left behind me," which the trumpeters were playing with all their might.

"You see," said Jack, "it would not do for the soldiers to be sad when one of them dies.