brought in a dozen fowls and a large basket full of eggs, and, ordering
supper to be ready at eight, the officers returned to their camp. They
found that their comrades had done fairly well. Several rooms had been
obtained in the village, and hams, black sausages, and other provisions
purchased, and cooked in a rough way on a gridiron.

"I am afraid that it is too good to last," the colonel said, as the
officers gathered around him as the bugle sounded for parade; "a week of
this and the last scrap of provisions here will have been eaten, and we
shall have nothing but our rations to fall back upon. There is one thing,
however, that is not likely to give out, that is wine. They grow it about
here, and I hear that the commissariat have bought up large quantities
without difficulty to serve out to the troops."

The regiment had a long afternoon's drill to get them out of the slackness
occasioned by their enforced idleness on the voyage. When it was over they
were formed up, and the colonel addressed a few words to the men.

"Men of the Mayo regiment," he said, "I trust that, now we are fairly
embarked upon the campaign, you will so behave as to do credit to
yourselves and to Ireland. Perhaps some of you think that, now that you
are on a campaign, you can do just as you like. Those who think so are
wrong; it is just the other way. When you were at home I did not think it
necessary that I should be severe with you; and as long as a man was able,
when he came into barracks, to walk to his quarters, I did not trouble
about him. But it is different here; any breach of duty will be most
severely punished, and any man who is found drunk will be flogged. Any man
plundering or ill-treating the people of the country will be handed over
to the provost-marshal, and, unless I am mistaken, he is likely to be
shot.