“They were such very bad dreams,” said the camel. “I am sorry. Listen! What is that? Shall we run on again?”

“Sit down,” said the mule, “or you’ll snap your long stick-legs between the guns.” He cocked one ear and listened.

“Bullocks!” he said. “Gun bullocks. On my word, you and your friends have waked the camp very thoroughly. It takes a good deal of prodding to put up a gun-bullock.”

I heard a chain dragging along the ground, and a yoke of the great sulky white bullocks that drag the heavy siege guns when the elephants won’t go any nearer to the firing, came shouldering along together. And almost stepping on the chain was another battery mule, calling wildly for “Billy.”