“So on the sea of life, Alas!
Man nears man, meets and leaves again.”

SECTION 1.

It had come. Ross-Ellison had proved a true prophet (and was to prove himself a true soldier and commander of men).

Possibly the most remarkable thing about it was the quickness and quietness, the naturalness and easiness with which it had come. A week or two of newspaper forecast and fear, a week or two of recrimination and feverish preparation, an ultimatum England at war. The navy mobilized, the army mobilizing, auxiliaries warned to be in readiness, overseas battalions, batteries and squadrons recalled, or re-distributed, reverses and “regrettable incidents,” and outlying parts of India (her native troops massed in the North or doing garrison-duty overseas) an archipelago of safety-islands in a sea of danger; Border parts of India for a time dependent upon their various volunteer battalions for the maintenance, over certain areas, of their civil governance, their political organization and public services.

In Gungapur, as in a few other Border cities, the lives of the European women, children and men, the safety of property, and the continuance of the local civil government depended for a little while upon the local volunteer corps.

Gungapur, whose history became an epitome of that of certain other isolated cities, was for a few short weeks an intermittently besieged garrison, a mark for wandering predatory bands composed of budmashes outlaws, escaped convicts, deserters, and huge mobs drawn from that enormous body of men who live on the margin of respectability, peaceful cultivator today, bloodthirsty dacoit to-morrow, wielders of the spade and mattock or of the lathi and tulwar according to season, circumstance, and the power of the Government; recruits for a mighty army, given the leader and the opportunity the hour of a Government’s danger.

As had been pointed out, time after time, in the happy and happy-go-lucky past, the practical civilian seditionist and active civilian rebel is more fortunately situated in India than is his foreign brother, in that his army exists ready to hand, all round him, in the thousands of the desperately poor, devoid of the “respectability” that accompanies property, thousands with nothing to lose and high hopes of much to gain, heaven-sent material for the agitator.

Thanks to the energy of Colonel John Robin Ross-Ellison, his unusual organizing ability, his personality, military genius and fore-knowledge of what was coming, Gungapur suffered less than might have been expected in view of its position on the edge of a Border State of always-doubtful friendliness, its large mill-hand element, and the poverty and turbulence of its general population.

The sudden departure of the troops was the sign for the commencement of a state of insecurity and anxiety which quickly merged into one of danger and fear, soon to be replaced by a state of war.

From the moment that it was known for certain that the garrison would be withdrawn, Colonel Ross-Ellison commenced to put into practice his projected plans and arrangements. On the day that Mr. Dearman’s coolies (after impassioned harangues by a blind Mussulman fanatic known as Ibrahim the Weeper, a faquir who had recently come over the Border to Gungapur and attained great influence; and by a Hindu professional agitator who had obtained a post at the mills in the guise of a harmless clerk) commenced rioting, beat Mr. Dearman to death with crowbars, picks, and shovels, murdered all the European and Eurasian employees, looted all that was worth stealing, and, after having set fire to the mills, invaded the Cantonment quarter, burning, murdering, destroying, Colonel Ross-Ellison called out his corps, declared martial law, and took charge of the situation, the civil authorities being dead or cut off in the “districts”.

The place which he had marked out for his citadel in time of trouble was the empty Military Prison, surrounded by a lofty wall provided with an unassailable water-supply, furnished with cook-houses, infirmary, work-shop, and containing a number of detached bungalows (for officials) in addition to the long lines of detention barracks.

As soon as his men had assembled at Headquarters he marched to the place and commenced to put it in a state of defence and preparation for a siege.

While Captain Malet-Marsac and Captain John Bruce (of the Gungapur Engineering College) slaved at carrying out his orders in the Prison, other officers, with picked parties of European Volunteers, went out to bring in fugitives, to commandeer the contents of provision and grain shops, to drive in cattle, to seize cooks, sweepers and other servants, to shoot rioters and looters in the Cantonment area, to search for wounded and hidden victims of the riot, to bury corpses, extinguish fires, penetrate to European bungalows in the city and in outlying places, to publish abroad that the Military Prison was a safe refuge, to seize and empty ammunition shops and toddy shops, to mount guards at the railway-station, telegraph office, the banks, the gate-house of the great Jail, the Treasury and the Kutcherry, and generally, to use their common sense and their rifles as the situation demanded.

Day by day external operation became more restricted as the mob grew larger and bolder, better armed and better organized, daily augmented and assisted from without. The last outpost which Colonel Ross-Ellison withdrew was the one from the railway-station, and that was maintained until it was known that large bridges had been blown up on either side and the railway rendered useless. In the Jail gate-house he established a strong guard under the Superintendent, and urged him to use it ruthlessly, to kill on the barest suspicion of mutiny, and to welcome the first opportunity of giving the sharpest of lessons.

In this matter he set a personal example and behaved, to actual rioters, with what some of his followers considered unnecessary severity, and what others viewed as wise war-ending firmness.

When remonstrated with by Mr. Cornelius Gosling-Green (caught, alas! with his admirable wife in this sudden and terrible maelstrom), for shooting, against the Prison wall, a squad of armed men caught by night and under more than suspicious circumstances, within Cantonment limits, he replied curtly and rudely:

“My good little Gosling, I’d shoot you with my own hand if you failed me in the least particular so stick to your drill and hope to become a Corporal before the war is over”.

The world-famous Mr. Cornelius Gosling-Green, M.P., hoping to become a Corporal! Meanwhile he was less a private soldier, doing four hard drills a day not to mention sentry-go and fatigues. Like Augustus Clarence Percy Marmaduke Grobble, he grumbled bitterly but he obeyed, having been offered the hard choice of enrolment or exclusion.

“I’ll have no useless male mouths here,” had said Colonel Ross-Ellison. “Enroll or clear out and take your chance. I’ll look after your wife.”

“But, my dear Sir....”

“‘Sir’ without the ‘my dear,’ please.”

“I was about to say that I could ah assist, advise, sit upon your councils, give you the benefit of my er experience, ...” the Publicist had expostulated.

“Experience of war?”

“No er I ”

“Enroll or clear out and when you have enrolled remember that you are under martial law and in time of war.”

A swift, fierce, masterful man, harsh and ruthless making war without kid gloves that it might end the sooner and be the longer remembered by the survivors. The flag was to be kept flying in Gungapur, the women and children were to be saved, all possible damage was to be inflicted on the rebels and rioters, more particularly upon those who led and incited them. The Gosling-Greens and Grobbles who could not materially assist to this end could go, those who could thwart or hinder this end could die.

Gleams of humour enlivened the situation. Mrs. Gosling-Green (nee a Pounding-Pobble, Superiora Pounding-Pobble, one of the Pounding-Pobbles of Putney) was under the orders, very much under the orders, of the wife of the Sergeant-Major, and early and plainly learnt that good woman’s opinion that she was a poor, feckless body and eke a fushionless, not worth the salt of her porridge a lazy slut withal.

Among the “awkward squads” enrolled when rioting broke out and the corps seized the old Prison, were erstwhile grave and reverend seniors learning to “stand up like a man an’ look prahd o’ yourself” at the orders of the Sergeant-Major. Among them were two who had been Great Men, Managers signing per and pro, Heads of Departments, almost Tin Gods, and one of them, alas, was at the mercy of a mere boy whom he had detested and frequently “squashed” in the happy days of yore. The mere boy (a cool, humorous, and somewhat vindictive person, one of the best subalterns of the Corps and especially chosen by Colonel Ross-Ellison when re-organizing the battalion after its disbandment) was giving his close attention to the improvement of his late manager, a pompous, dull and silly bureaucrat, even as his late manager had done for him.

“Now, Private Bulliton,” he would urge, “do learn which is your right hand and which is your left. And do stand up.... No don’t drop your rifle when you are told to ‘shoulder’. That’s better we shall make something of you yet. Head up, man, head up! Try and look fierce. Look at Private Faggit he’ll be a Sergeant yet” ... and indeed Private Horace Faggit was looking very fierce indeed, for he desired the blood of these interfering villains who were hindering the development of the business of the fine old British firm of Messrs. Schneider, Schnitzel, Schnorrer & Schmidt and the commissions of their representative. Also he felt that he was assisting at the making of history. ’Orace in a bloomin’ siege Gorblimey! and he, who had never killed anything bigger than an insect in his life, lusted to know how it felt to shove your bayonet into a feller or shoot ’im dead at short rynge. So Horace drilled with alacrity and zest, paid close attention to aiming-instruction and to such visual-training and distance-judging as his officer, Captain John Bruce, could give him, and developed a military aptitude surprising to those who had known him only as Horace Faggit, Esquire, the tried and trusted Representative of the fine old British Firm of Schneider, Schnitzel, Schnorrer & Schmidt.

To Captain Malet-Marsac, an unusually thoughtful, observant and studious soldier, it was deeply interesting to see how War affected different people how values changed, how the Great became exceeding small, and the insignificant person became important. By the end of the first month of what was virtually the siege of the Military Prison, Horace Faggit, late office-boy, clerk, and bagman, was worth considerably more than Augustus Grobble, late Professor of Moral Philosophy; Cornelius Gosling-Green, late Publicist; Edward Jones, late (alleged) Educationist, of Duri formerly; and a late Head of a Department, all rolled into one a keen, dapper, self-reliant soldier, courageous, prompt, and very bloodthirsty.

As he strolled up and down, supervising drills, went round the sentry-posts by night, or marched at the head of a patrol, Captain Malet-Marsac would reflect upon the relativity of things, the false values of civilization, and the extraordinary devitalising and deteriorating results of “education”. When it came to vital issues, elementals, stark essential manhood, then the elect of civilization, the chosen of education, weighed, was found not only wanting but largely negligible. Where the highly “educated” was as good as the other he was so by reason of his games and sports, his shikar, or his specialized training as in the case of the engineers and other physically-trained men.

Captain John Bruce, for example, Professor of Engineering, was a soldier in a few weeks and a fine one. In time of peace, a quiet, humorous, dour and religious-minded man, he was now a stern disciplinarian and a cunning foe who fought to kill, rejoicing in the carnage that taught a lesson and made for earlier peace. The mind that had dreamed of universal brotherhood and the Oneness of Humanity now dreamed of ambushes, night-attacks, slaughterous strategy and magazine-fire on a cornered foe.

Surely and steadily the men enclosed behind the walls of the old Prison rose into the ranks of the utterly reliable, the indefatigable, the fearless and the fine, or sank into those of the shifty, unhearty, unreliable, and unworthy save the few who remained steadily mediocre, well-meaning, unsoldierly, fairly trustworthy a useful second line, but not to be sent on forlorn hopes, dangerous reconnoitring, risky despatch-carrying, scouting, or ticklish night-work. One siege is very like another and Ross-Ellison’s garrison knew increasing weariness, hunger, disease and casualties.

Mrs. Dearman’s conduct raised Colonel Ross-Ellison’s love to a burning, yearning devotion, and his defence of Gungapur became his defence of Mrs. Dearman. For her husband she appeared to mourn but little there was little time to mourn and, for a while, until sights, sounds and smells became increasingly horrible, she appeared almost to enjoy her position of Queen of the Garrison, the acknowledged Ladye of the Officers and men of the Corps. Until she fell sick herself, she played the part of amateur Florence Nightingale right well, going regularly with a lamp the Lady with the Lamp at night through the hospital ward. Captain John Bruce was the only one who was not loud in her praises, though he uttered no dispraises. He, a dour and practical person, thought the voyage with the Lamp wholly unnecessary and likely to awaken sleepers to whom sleep was life; that lint-scraping would have been a more useful employment than graciousness to the poor wounded; that a woman, as zealous as Mrs. Dearman looked, would have torn up dainty cotton and linen confections for bandages instead of wearing them; that the Commandant didn’t need all the personal encouragement and enheartenment that she wished to give him and many other uncomfortable, cynical, and crabby thoughts. Captain Malet-Marsac loved her without criticism.

Mrs. Cornelius Gosling-Green, after haranguing all and sundry, individually and collectively, on the economic unsoundness, the illogic, and the unsocial influence of War, took to her bed and stayed there until she found herself totally neglected. Arising and demanding an interview with the Commandant, she called him to witness that she entered a formal protest against the whole proceedings and registered her emphatic until the Commandant, sending for Cornelius (whose duties cut him off, unrepining, from his wife’s society), ordered him to remove her, silence her, beat her if necessary and so save her from the unpleasant alternative of solitary confinement on bread and water until she could be, if not useful, innocuous.

Many a poor woman of humble station proved herself (what most women are) an uncomplaining, unconsidered heroine, and more than one “subordinate” of mixed ancestry and unpromising exterior, a brave devoted man. As usual, what kept the flag flying and gave ultimate victory to the immeasurably weaker side was the spirit, the personality, the force, the power, of one man.

To Captain Malet-Marsac this was a revelation. Even to him, who knew John Robin Ross-Ellison well, and had known and studied him for some time at Duri and elsewhere, it was a wonderful thing to see how the quiet, curious, secretive man (albeit a fine athlete, horseman and adventurous traveller) stepped suddenly into the fierce light of supreme command in time of war, a great, uncompromising, resourceful ruler of men, skilful strategist and tactician, remarkable both as organizer, leader, and personal fighter.

Did he ever sleep? Night after night he penetrated into the city disguised as a Pathan (a disguise he assumed with extraordinary skill and which he strengthened by a perfect knowledge of many Border dialects as well as of Pushtoo), or else personally led some night attack, sally, reconnaissance or foraging expedition. Day after day he rode out on Zuleika with the few mounted men at his command, scouting, reconnoitring, gleaning information, attacking and slaughtering small parties of marauders as occasion offered.

From him the professional soldier, his adjutant, learned much, and wondered where his Commandant had learned all he had to teach. Captain Malet-Marsac owned him master, his military as well as his official superior, and grew to feel towards him as his immediate followers felt toward Napoleon to love him with a devoted respect, a respecting devotion. He recognized in him the born guerrilla leader and more, the trained guerrilla leader, and wondered where on earth this strange civilian had garnered his practical military knowledge and skill.

Wherever he went on foot, especially when he slipped out of the Prison for dangerous spy-work among the forces of the mutineers, rebels, rioters and budmashes of the city, he was followed by his servant, an African, concerning whom Colonel Ross-Ellison had advised the servants of the Officers’ Mess to be careful and also to bear in mind that he was not a Hubshi. Only when the Colonel rode forth on horseback was he separated from this man who, when the Colonel was in his room, invariably slept across the door thereof.

On night expeditions, the Somali would be disguised, sometimes as a leprous beggar, as stable-boy, again as an Arab, sometimes as a renegade sepoy from a Native Border Levy, sometimes as a poor fisherman, again as a Sidi boatman, he being, like his master, exceptionally good at disguises of all kinds, and knowing Hindustani, Arabic, and his native Somal dialect.

He was an expert bugler, and in that capacity stuck like a burr to the Colonel by day, looking very smart and workmanlike in khaki uniform and being of more than average usefulness with rifle and bayonet. Not until after the restoration of order did Mr. Edward Jones, formerly of the Duri High School, long puzzled as to where he had seen him before, realize who he was.

In a low dark room, dimly lighted that evening by wick-and-saucer butties, squatted, lay, sat, stood and sprawled a curious collection of scoundrels. The room was large, and round the four sides of it ran a very broad, very low, and very filthy divan, intended for the rest and repose of portly bunnias, seths, brokers, shopkeepers and others of the commercial fraternity, what time they assembled to chew pan and exchange lies and truths anent money and the markets. A very different assembly now occupied its greasy lengths vice the former habitues of the salon, now dispersed, dead, robbed, ruined, held to ransom, or cruelly blackmailed.

In the seat of honour (an extra cushion), sat the blind faquir who, with his clerkly colleague, had set the original match to the magazine by inciting the late Mr. Dearman’s coolies. Apparently a relentless, terrible fanatic and bitter hater of the English, for his councils were all of blood and fire, rapine and slaughter, he taunted his hearers with their supine cowardice in that the Military Prison still held out, its handful of defenders still manned its walls, nay, from time to time, made sallies and terrible reprisals upon a careless ill-disciplined enemy.

“Were I but as other men! Had I but mine eyes!” he screamed, “I would overwhelm the place in an hour. Hundreds to one you are and you are mocked, robbed, slaughtered.”

A thin-faced, evil-looking, squint-eyed Hindu whose large, thick, gold-rimmed goggles accorded ill with the sword that lay athwart his crossed legs, addressed him in English.

“Easy to talk, Moulvie. Had you your sight you could perhaps drill and arm the mob into an army, eh? Find them repeating rifles and ammunition, find them officers, find them courage? Is it not? Yes.”

“Hundreds to one, Babu,” grunted the blind man, and spat.

“I would urge upon this august assemblée,” piped a youthful weedy person, “that recreemination is not argument, and that many words butter no parsneeps, so to speak. We are met to decide as to whether the treasure shall be removed to Pirgunge or still we keep it with us here in view of sudden sallies of foes. I hereby beg to propose and my honourable friend Mister ”

“Sit down, crow,” said the blind faquir unkindly and there was a snigger. “The treasure will be removed at once this night, or I will remove myself from Gungapur with all my followers and go where deeds are being done. I weary of waiting while pi-dogs yelp around the walls they cannot enter. Cowards! Thousands to one and ye do not kill two of them a day. Conquer and slay them? Nay rather must our own treasure be removed lest some night the devil, in command there, swoop upon it, driving ye off like sheep and carrying back with him ”

“Flesh and blood cannot face a machine-gun, Moulvie,” said the squint-eyed Hindu. “Even your holy sanctity would scarcely protect you from bullets. Come forth and try to-morrow.”

“Nor can flesh and blood such flesh and blood as Gungapur provides surround the machine-gun and rush upon it from flank and rear of course,” replied the blind man. “Do machine guns fire in all directions at once? When they ran the accursed thing down to the market-place and fired it into the armed crowd that listened to my words, could ye not have fled by other streets to surround it? Had all rushed bravely from all directions how long would it have fired? Even thus, could more have died than did die? Scores they slew and retired but when they could fire no longer.... And ye allowed it to go because a dozen men stood between it and you ,” and again the good man spat.

“I do not say ‘Sit down, crow’ for thou art already sitting,” put in a huge, powerful-looking man, arrayed in a conical puggri-encircled cap, long pink shirt over very baggy peg-top trousers, and a green waistcoat, “but I weary of thy chatter Blind-Man. Keep thy babble for fools in the market-place, where, I admit, it hath its uses. Remain our valued and respected talker and interfere not with fighting men, nor criticize. And say not ‘The treasure will be removed this night,’ nor anything else concerning command. I will decide in the matter of the treasure and I prefer to keep it here under mine hand....”

“Doubtless,” sneered the blind man. “Under thy hand until, in the end, it be found to consist of boxes of stones and old iron. Look you the treasure goes to-night or I go, and certain others go with me. And suppose I change my tune in the market-place, Havildar Nazir Ali Khan, and say certain words concerning thee and thy designs, give hints of treachery and where is the loud-mouthed Nazir Ali Khan?...” and his blind eyes glared cold ferocity at the last speaker who handled his sword and replied nothing.

The secret of the man’s power was clear.

“The treasure will be removed to night,” he repeated and a discussion of limes, routes, escort and other details followed. A dispute arose between the big man addressed as Havildar Nazir Ali Khan and a squat broad-shouldered Pathan as to the distance and probable time that a convoy, moving at the rate of laden bullock-carts, would take in reaching Pirgunge.

The short thick-set Pathan turned for confirmation of his estimate to another Pathan, grey-eyed but obviously a Pathan, nevertheless.

“I say it is five kos and the carts should start at moonrise and arrive before the moon sets.”

“You are right, brother,” replied the grey-eyed Pathan, who, for his own reasons, particularly desired that the convoy should move by moonlight. This individual had not spoken hitherto in the hearing of the blind faquir, and, as he did so now, the blind man turned sharply in his direction, a look of startled surprise and wonder on his face.

“Who spoke?” he snapped.

But the grey-eyed man arose, yawned hugely, and, arranging his puggri and straightening his attire, swaggered towards the door of the room, passed out into a high-walled courtyard, exchanged a few words with the guardian of a low gateway, and emerged into a narrow alley where he was joined by an African-looking camel-man.

The blind man, listening intently, sat motionless for a minute and then again asked sharply:

“Who spoke? Who spoke?”

“Many have spoken Pir Saheb,” replied the squat Pathan.

“Who said ‘You are right, brother,’ but now? Who? Quick!” he cried.

“Who? Why, ’twas one of us,” replied the squat Pathan. “Yea, ’twas Abdulali Habbibullah, the money-lender. I have known him long....”

“Let him speak again,” said the blind man.

“Where is he? He has gone out, I think,” answered the other.

“Call him back, Hidayetullah. Take others and bring him back. I must hear his voice again,” urged the faquir.

“He will come again, Moulvie Saheb, he is often here,” said the short man soothingly. “I know him well. He will be here to-morrow.”

“See, Hidayetullah,” said the blind faquir “when next he comes, say then to me, ‘May I bring thee tobacco, Pir Saheb,’ if he be sitting near, but say ‘May I bring thee tobacco, Moulvie Saheb,’ if he be sitting afar off. If this, speak to him across the room that I may hear his voice in answer, and call him by his name, Abdulali Habbibullah. And if I should, on a sudden, cry out ‘Hold the door,’ do thou draw knife and leap to the door....”

“A spy, Pir Saheb?” asked the interested man.

“That I shall know when next I hear his voice and, if it be he whom I think, thou shalt scrape the flesh from the bones of his face with thy knife and put his eyeballs in his mouth. But he must not die. Nay! Nay!”

The Pathan smiled.

“Thou shalt hear his voice, Pir Saheb,” he promised.

An hour later the African-looking camel-man and the Pathan approached the gates of the Military Prison and at a distance of a couple of hundred yards the African imitated the cry of a jackal, the barking of a dog and the call of the “Did-ye-do-it” bird.

Approaching the gate he whispered a countersign and was admitted, the gate being then held open for the Pathan who followed him at a distance of a hundred yards. Entering Colonel Ross-Ellison’s room the Pathan quickly metamorphosed himself into Colonel Ross-Ellison, and sent for his Adjutant, Captain Malet-Marsac.

“Fifty of the best, with fifty rounds each, to parade at the gate in half an hour,” he said. “Bruce to accompany me, you to remain in command here. All who can, to wear rubber-soled shoes, others to go barefoot or bandage their boots with putties over cardboard or paper. No man likely to cough or sneeze is to go. Luminous-paint discs to be served out to half a dozen. No rations, no water, just shirts, shorts and bandoliers. Nothing white or light-coloured to be worn. Put a strong outpost, all European, under Corporal Faggit on the hill, and double all guards and sentries. Shove sentry-groups at the top of the Sudder Bazaar, West Street and Edward Road. You know all about it.... I’ve got a good thing on. There’ll be a lot of death about to-night, if all goes well.”

Half an hour later Captain Bruce called his company of fifty picked men to “attention” as Colonel Ross-Ellison approached, the gate was opened and an advance-guard of four men, with four flankers, marched out and down the road leading to the open country. Two of these wore each a large tin disc painted with luminous paint fastened to his back. When these discs were only just visible from the gate a couple more disc-adorned men started forth, and before their discs faded into the darkness the remainder of the party “formed fours” and marched after them, all save a section of fours which followed a couple of hundred yards in the rear, as a rear-guard. In silence the small force advanced for an hour, passed some cross-roads, and then Colonel Ross-Ellison, who had joined the advance-guard, signalled a halt and moved away by himself to the right of the road.

In the shadow of the trees, the moon having risen, Captain Bruce ordered his men to lie down, announcing in a whisper that he would have the life of anyone who made a sound or struck a match. This was known to be but half in jest, for the Captain was a good disciplinarian and a man of his word.

Save for the occasional distant bark of the village-dogs, the night was very still. Sitting staring out into the moon-lit hazy dusk in the direction in which his chief had disappeared, Captain John Bruce wondered if he were really one of a band of armed men who hoped shortly to pour some two and a half thousand bullets into other men, really a soldier fighting and working and starving that the Flag might fly, really a primitive fighting-man with much blood upon his hands and an earnest desire for more or whether he were not a respectable Professor who would shortly wake, beneath mosquito-curtains, from a very dreadful dream. How thin a veneer was this thing called Civilization, and how unchanged was human nature after centuries and centuries of

Colonel Ross-Ellison appeared.

“Bring twenty-five men and follow me. Hurry up,” he said quietly, and, a minute later, led the way from the high-road across country. Five minutes marching brought the party, advancing in file, to the mouth of a nullah which ran parallel with the road. Along this, Colonel Ross-Ellison led them, and, when he gave the signal to halt, it was seen that they were behind a high sloping bank within fifty yards of the high-road.

“Now,” said the Colonel to Captain John Bruce, “I’m going to leave you here. Let your men lie below the top of the bank and if any man looks over, till your command ‘Up and fire,’ kick his face in. You will peep through that bit of bush and no one else will move. Do nothing until I open fire from the other side. The moment I open fire, up your lot come and do the same. Magazine, of course. The moon will improve as it rises more. You’ll fix bayonets and charge magazines now. I expect a pretty big convoy and before very long. Probably a mob all round a couple of bylegharies and a crowd following everybody distrusting every one, as it is treasure, looted from all round. Don’t shoot the bullocks, but I particularly want to kill a blind bloke who may be with ’em, so if we charge, barge in too, and look out for a blinder and don’t give him any quarter give him half instead half your sword. He’s a ringleader and I want him for auld lang syne too, as it happens. He doesn’t look blind at all, but he would be led.... Any questions?”

“No, Sir. I’m to hide till you fire. Then fire, magazine, and charge if you do. A blind man to be captured if possible. The bullocks not to be shot, if possible.”

“Eight O. Carry on,” and the Colonel strode back to where the remaining twenty-five waited, under a Sergeant. These he placed behind an old stone wall that marked the boundary of a once-cultivated patch of land, some forty yards from the road, to which the ground sloped sharply downwards.

A nice trap if all went well.

All went exceeding well.

Within an hour and a half of the establishment of the ambush, the creaking of ungreased wheels was heard and the loud nasal singing of some jovial soul. Down the silent deserted road came three bullock-carts piled high with boxes and escorted by a ragged regiment of ex-sepoys, ex-police, mutineers, almost a battalion from the forces of the wild Border State neighbouring Gungapur. A small crowd of variously armed uniformless men preceded the escort and carts, while a large one followed them.

No advance-guard nor flanking-parties guaranteed the force from ambush or attack.

Suddenly, as the carts crossed a long culvert and the escort perforce massed on to the road, instead of straggling on either side beneath the trees, a voice said coolly in English “Up and fire,” and as scores of surprised faces turned in the direction of the voice the night was rent with the crash of fifty rifles pouring in magazine fire at the rate of fifteen rounds a minute. Magazine fire at less than fifty yards, into a close-packed body of men. Scarcely a hundred shots were returned and, by the time a couple of thousand rounds had been fired (less than three minutes), and Colonel Boss-Ellison had cried “Ch-a-a-a-r-ge” there was but little to charge and not much for the bayonet to do. Of the six bullocks four were uninjured.

“Load as many boxes as you can on two carts, and leave half a dozen men to bring them in. They’ll have to take their chance. We must get back ek dum," said Colonel Ross-Ellison.

Even as he spoke, the sound of distant firing fell upon the ears of the party and the unmistakable stammer-hammer racket of the maxim.

“They’re attacked, by Jove,” he cried. “I thought it likely. There may have been an idea that we should know something of this convoy and go for it. All ready? Now a steady double. We’ll double and quick-march alternately. Double march.”

Near the Military Prison was a low conical hill, bare of vegetation and buildings, a feature of the situation which was a constant source of anxiety to Colonel Ross-Ellison, for he realized that life in the beleaguered fortress would be very much harder, and the casualty rate very much higher, if the enemy had the sense to occupy it in strength and fire down into the Prison. Against this contingency he always maintained a picket there at night and a special sentry to watch it by day, and he had caused deep trenches to be dug and a covered way made in the Prison compound, so that the fire-swept area could be crossed, when necessary, with the minimum of risk. Until the night of the convoy-sortie, however, the enemy had not had the ordinary common sense to grasp the fact that the hill was the key of the situation and to seize it.

“Bloomin’ cold up ’ere, Privit Greens, wot?” observed Corporal Horace Faggit to the famous Mr. Cornelius Gosling-Green, M.P., in kindly and condescending manner, as he placed him back to back with Private Augustus Grobble on the hill-top. “But you’ll keep awake all the better for that, me lad.... Now you other four men can go to sleep, see? You’ll lie right close up agin the feet o’ Privits Greens an’ Grabbles, and when they’ve done their two hours, they’ll jes’ give two o’ you a kick and them two’ll rise up an’ take their plaices while they goes to sleep. Then them two’ll waike ‘tother two, see? An’ if hannyone approaches, the sentry as is faicin’ ’im will ’olleraht ’Alt! ’Oo comes there?’ an’ if the bloke or blokes say, ‘Friend,’ then ’e’ll say ‘Hadvance one an’ give the countersign,’ and if he can’t give no countersign, then blow ‘is bleedin’ ’ead off, see?... Now I shall visit yer from time to time, an’ let me find you spry an’ smart with yer,’ ’Alt,’ ‘Oo comes there? see? An’ if either sentry sees anythink suspicious down below there let ’im send the other sentry across fer me over in the picket there, see? ‘E’ll waike up the others meanwhile an’ they’ll all watch out till I comes and gives orders, see? An’ if you’re attacked afore I come, then retire firing. Retire on the picket, see? We won’t shoot yer. Don’t make a bloomin’ blackguard-rush for the picket though. Jest retire one by one firin’ steady, see? Now I’m goin’ back to the picket. Ow! an’ don’ fergit the reconnoitrin’ patrol. Don’ go an’ shoot at ’em as they comes back. ’Alt ’em for the countersign as they comes out, and ’alt ’em fer it agin as they comes in, see? Right O. Now you keep yer eyes skinned, Greens and Grobbles.”

Private Cornelius Gosling-Green, M.P., had never looked really impressive even on the public platform in over-long frock-coat and turned-down collar. In ill-fitting khaki, ammunition boots, a helmet many sizes too big, and badly-wound putties, he looked an extremely absurd object. Private Augustus Grobble looked a little more convincing, inasmuch as his fattish figure filled his uniform, but the habit of wearing his helmet on the back of his neck and a general congenital unmilitariness of habit and bearing, operated against success.

Two unhappier men rarely stood back to back upon a lonely, windy hill-top. Both were very hungry, very sleepy and very cold, both were essentially men of peace, and both had powerful imaginations especially of horrors happening to their cherished selves.

Both were dealers in words; neither was conversant with things, facts, deeds, and all that lay outside their inexpressibly artificial and specialized little spheres. Each had been “educated” out of physical manliness, self-reliance, courage, practical usefulness, adaptability, “grit” and the plain virile virtues.

Cornelius burned with a peevish indignation that he, writer of innumerable pamphlets, speaker at innumerable meetings, organizer of innumerable societies, compiler of innumerable statistics, author of innumerable letters to the press, he, husband of the famous suffragist worker, speaker, organizer and leader, Superiora Gosling-Green (a Pounding-Pobble of the Pounding-Pobbles of Putney), that he, Cornelius Gosling-Green, Esq., M.P., should be stuck there like a common soldier, with a heavy and dangerous gun and a nasty sharp-pointed bayonet, to stand and shiver while others slept. To stand, too, in a horribly dangerous situation ... he had a good mind to resign in protest, to take his stand upon his inalienable rights as a free Englishman. Who should dare to coerce a Gosling-Green, Member of Parliament, of the Fabian Society, and a hundred other “bodies”. His Superiora did all the coercing he wanted and more too. He would enter a formal protest and tender his resignation. He had always, hitherto, been able to protest and resign when things did not go as he wished.

He yawned, and again.

“I can see as well sitting or kneeling as I can standing,” he remarked to Private Augustus Grobble.

“It is a great physiological truth,” replied Augustus, and they both sat down, leaning against each other for warmth and support, back to back.

The soul of Augustus was filled with a melancholy sadness and a gentle woe. To think that he, the loved of many beautiful Wimmin should be suffering such hardships and running such risks. How his face was falling in and how the wrinkles were gathering round his eyes. Some of the beautiful and frail, of whom he thought when he gave his usual toast after dinner, “To the Wimmin who have loved me,” would hardly recognize the fair boy over whom they had raved, whose poems they had loved, whose hair, finger-nails, eyes, ties, socks and teeth they had complimented. A cruel, cruel waste. But how rather romantic the war-worn soldier! He who knew his Piccadilly, Night Clubs, the theatres, the haunts of fair women and brave men, standing, no sitting, on a lonely hill-top watching, watching, the lives of the garrison in his hands.... He would return to those haunts, bronzed, lined, hardened the man from the edge of the Empire, from the back of Beyond, the man who had Done Things and talk of camp-fires, the trek, the Old Trail, smells of sea and desert and jungle, and the man-stifled town, ... battle, ... brave deeds ... unrecognized heroism ... a medal ... perhaps the ... and the nodding head of Augustus settled upon his chest.

His deep breathing and occasional snores did not attract the attention of Private Gosling-Green, as Private Gosling-Green was sound asleep. Nor did they awaken the weary four who made up the sentry group Edward Jones, educationist; Henry Grigg, barber; Walter Smith, shopman; Reginald Ladón Gurr, Head of a Department and whose right it was to sleep so long as two of the six watched.

“Let there be no mistake then,” said the burly Havildar Nazir Ali Khan to one Hidayetulla, squat thick-set Pathan, “at the first shot from the hill your party, ceasing to crawl, will rush upon the picket, and mine will swoop upon the gate bearing the tins of kerosene oil, the faggots and the brushwood. All those with guns will fire at the walls save the Border State company who will reserve their fire till the gate is opened or burnt down. The dogs within must either open it to extinguish the fire, or it must burn. On their volley, all others will charge for the gate with knife and sword. Do thou win the hill-top and keep up a heavy fire into the Prison. There will be Lee-Metford rifles and ammunition there ready for thy taking ha-ha!”

“And if we are seen and fired on as we stalk the picket on the hill?”

“Then their first shot will, as I said, be the signal for your rush and ours. Understandest thou?”

“I understand. ’Tis a good plan of the blind Moulvie’s.”

“Aye! He can plan, and talk. We can go and be shot, and be blamed if his plans miscarry,” grumbled the big man, and added, “How many have you?”

“About forty,” was the reply, “and all Khost men save seven, of whom four are Afghans of Cabul, two are Punjabis, and one a Sikh.”

“Is it three hours since the treasure started? That was the time the Moulvie fixed for the attack.”

“It must be, perhaps,” replied the other. “Let us begin. But what if the hill be not held, or if we capture it with the knife, none firing a shot?”

“Then get into good position, make little sungars where necessary, and, all being ready, open fire into the Prison compound.... At the first shot whatever be thy luck we shall rush in our thousands down the Sudder Bazaar, West Street and Edward Street, and do as planned. Are thy forty beneath the trees beyond the hill?”

“They are. I join them now,” and the squat broad-shouldered figure rolled away with swinging, swaggering gait.

Suddenly Private Augustus Grobble started from deep sleep to acutest wide-eyed consciousness and was aware of a man’s face peering over a boulder not twenty yards from him a hideous hairy face, surmounted by a close-fitting skull-cap that shone greasy in the moonlight. The blood of Augustus froze in his veins, he held his breath, his heart shook his body, his tongue withered and dried. He closed his eyes as a wave of faintness swept over him, and, as he opened them again, he saw that the man was crawling towards him, and that between his teeth was a huge knife. The terrible Pathan, the cruel dreadful stalker, the slashing disemboweller was upon him! and with a mighty effort he sprang to his feet and fled for his life down the hill in the direction of the Prison. His sudden movements awoke Private Green, who, in one scared glance, saw a number of terrible forms arising from behind boulders and rushing silently and swiftly towards him and his flying comrade. Leaping up he fled after Grabble, running as he had never run before, and, even as he leapt clear of the sleeping group, the wave of Pathans broke upon it and with slash and stab assured it sound sleep for ever, all save Edward Jones, who, badly wounded as he was, survived (to the later undoing of Moussa Isa, murderer of a Brahmin boy).

Of the four Pathans who had surprised the sentry group, one, with a passing slash that re-arranged the face of Reginald Ladón Gurr, sped on after the flying sentries. But that the man was short and stout of build and that the fugitives had a down-hill start, both would have died that night. As it was, within ten seconds, a tremendous sweep of the heavy blade of the long Khyber knife caused Private Gosling-Green to lose his head completely and for the last time. Augustus Grobble, favoured of fortune for the moment, took flying leaps that would have been impossible to him under other circumstances, bounded and ran unstumbling, gained the shadow of the avenue of trees, and with bursting breast sped down the road, reached the gate, shouted the countersign with his remaining breath, and was dragged inside by Captain Michael Malet-Marsac.

“Well?” inquired he coldly of the gasping terrified wretch.

When he could do so, Augustus sobbed out his tale.

“Bugler, sound the alarm!” said the officer. “Sergeant of the Guard put this man in the guard-room and keep him under arrest until he is sent for,” and, night-glasses in hand, he climbed one of the ladders leading to the platform erected a few feet below the top of the well-loopholed wall, just as a shot was fired and followed by others in rapid succession on the hill whence Grobble had fled.

The shot was fired by Corporal Horace Faggit and so were the next four as he rapidly emptied his magazine at the swiftly charging Pathans who rose out of the earth on his first shot at the man he had seen wriggling to the cover of a stone. As he fired and shouted, the picket-sentry did the same, and, within a minute of Horace’s first shot, ten rifles were levelled at the spot where the rushing silent fiends had disappeared. Within thirty yards of them were at least half a dozen men and not a glimpse of one to be seen.

“I got one, fer keeps, any’ow,” said Horace in the silence that followed the brief racket; “I see ’im drop ‘is knife an’ fall back’ards....”

Perfect silence and then ... bang ... and a man standing beside Horace grunted, coughed, and scuffled on the ground.

“Get down! Get down! You fools,” cried Horace, who was himself standing up. “Wha’s the good of a square sungar if you stands up in it? All magazines charged? It’s magazine-fire if there’s a rush."....

Silence.

“Fire at the next flash, all of yer,” he said, “an’ look out fer a rush.” Adding, “Bli’ me ’ark at ’em dahn below,” as a burst of fire and a pandemonium of yells broke out.

A yellow glare lit the scene, flickered on the sky, and even gave sufficient light to the picket on the hill-top to see a wave of wild, white-clad, knife-brandishing figures surge over the edge of the hill and bear down upon them, to be joined, as they passed, by those who had sunk behind stones at the picket’s first fire.

“Stiddy,” shrilled Horace. “Aim stiddy at the b s. Fire,” and again the charging line vanished.

“Gone to earf,” observed Horace in the silence. “Nah look aht for flashes an’ shoot at ’em....”

Bang! and Horace lost a thumb and a portion of his left cheek, which was in line with his left thumb as he sighted his rifle.

Before putting his left hand into his mouth he said, a little unsteadily:

“If I’m knocked aht you go on shootin’ at flashes and do magazine-fire fer rushes. If they gets in ’ere, we’re tripe in two ticks.”

Then he fainted for a while, came to, and felt much better. “Goo’ job it’s the left fumb,” he observed as he strove to re-charge his magazine. The dull thud of bullet into flesh became a frequent sound. The last observation that Horace made to the remnant of his men was:

“Bli’ me! they’re all rahnd us now like flies rahnd a fish-barrer. Dam’ swine!...”

Firing steadily at the advancing mobs the street-end pickets retired on the Prison and were admitted as the surging crowds amalgamated, surrounded the walls, and opened a desultory fire at the loopholes and such of the defenders as fired over the coping from ladders.

One detachment, with some show of military discipline and uniform, arrayed itself opposite the gate and a couple of hundred yards from it, lining the ditch of the road, and utilizing the cover and shadow of the trees. Suddenly a large party, mainly composed of Mahsuds, and headed by a very big powerful man, made a swift rush to the gate, each man bearing a bundle of faggots or a load of cut brushwood, save two or three who bore vessels of kerosene oil. With reckless courage and daring, they ran the gauntlet of the loopholes and the fire from the wall-top, piled their combustibles against the wooden gate, poured gallons of kerosene over the heap, set fire to it, and fled.

The leaping flames spread and shot forth licking tongues and, in a few minutes, the pile was a roaring crackling furnace.

The mob grew denser and denser toward the gate side of the Prison, leaving the remaining portions of the perimeter thinly surrounded by those who possessed firearms and had been instructed to shoot at loopholes and at all who showed themselves over the wall. It was noticeable to Captain Malet-Marsac that the ever-increasing mob opposite the fire left a clear front to the more-or-less uniformed and disciplined body that had taken up a position commanding the gate.

That was the game was it? Burn down the gate, pour in a tremendous fire as the gate fell, and then let the mob rush in and do its devilmost....

What was happening on the hill-top? The picket must be holding whatever force had attacked it, for no shots were entering the Prison compound and the only casualties were among those at the loopholes and on the ladders and platforms round the walls. How long would the gate last? Absolutely useless to attempt to pour water on the fire. Even if it were not certain death to attempt it, one might as well try to fly, as to quench that furnace with jugs and chatties of water.

There was nothing to be done. Every man who could use a rifle was at loophole or embrasure, ammunition was plentiful, all non-combatants were hidden. Every one understood the standing-orders in case of such an emergency....

The gate was on fire. It was smoking on the inner side, warping, cracking, little flames were beginning to appear tentatively, and disappear again.

“Now bugler!” said Captain Malet-Marsac, and Moussa Isa’s locum tenens blew his only call a series of long loud G’s.... The gate blazed, before long it would fall.... A hush fell upon the expectant multitude without, the men of the more-or-less uniformed and disciplined party raised their rifles, a big burly man bawled orders....

With a crash and leaping fountain of sparks the gate fell into the dying fire, a mighty roar burst from the multitude, and a crashing fusillade from the rifles of the uniformed men....

As their magazine-fire slackened, dwindled to a desultory popping, and ceased, the mob with a howl of triumph surged forward to the gaping gateway, trampled and scattered the glowing remnants of the fire, swarmed yelling through, and found themselves face to face with a stout semicircular rampart of stone, earth and sandbags, which, loopholed, embrasured and strongly manned, spanned the gateway in a thirty-yard arc. From the centre of it, pointing at the entrance, looked the maxim gun.

“Fire,” shouted a voice, and in a minute the place was a shambles. Before Maxim and Lee-Metford were too hot to touch, before the baffled foe fell back, those who surged in through the gate climbed, not over a wall of dead, but up on to a platform of dead, a plateau through which ran a valley literally blasted out by the ceaseless maxim-fire....

And, as the less fanatical, less courageous, less bloodthirsty withdrew and gathered without and to one side, where they were safe from that terrible fire-belching rampart that was itself like the muzzle of some gigantic thousand-barrelled machine-gun, they were aware, in their rear, of a steady tramp of running feet and of the orders:

“From the centre extend! At the enemy in front; fixed sights; fire,” and of a withering hail of bullets.

Colonel Ross-Ellison had arrived in the nick of time. It was a “crowning mercy” indeed, the beginning of the end, and when (a few days later), over a repaired bridge, came a troop-train, gingerly advancing, the battalion of British troops that it disgorged at Gungapur Road Station found disappointingly little to do in a city of women, children, and eminently respectable innocent, householders.

On the hill-top, at dawn, Colonel Ross-Ellison and Captain Malet-Marsac found all that was left of the picket and sentry-group, of the latter, three mangled corpses, the headless deserter, and a just-living man, horribly slashed. It was Moussa Isa Somali who improvised a stretcher and lifted this poor fellow on to it and tended him with the greatest solicitude and faithful care. Was he not Jones Sahib who at Duri gave him the knife wherewith he cleansed his honour and avenged his insulted People?

Of the picket, nine lay dead and one dying. Of the dead, one had his lower jaw neatly and cleanly removed by a bullet. Two had bled to death.

“’Ullo, Guvner!” whispered Corporal Horace Faggit through parched cracked lips. “We kep’ ’em orf. We ‘eld the bleedin’ fort,” and the last effect of the departing mind upon the shot-torn, knife-slashed body was manifested in a gasping, quavering wail of

“‘Owld the Fort fer Hi am comin’”
Jesus whispers still.
“‘Owld the Fort fer Hi am comin,’”
By Thy graice we will.

Each of these corpses Moussa Isa carried reverently down to the Prison that they might be “buried darkly at dead of night” with the other heroes, in softer ground without the walls a curious funeral in which loaded rifles and belted maxim played their silent part. Apart from the honoured dead was buried the body of Private Augustus Grabble, shot against the Prison wall by order of Colonel Ross-Ellison for cowardice in the face of the enemy and desertion of his post. So was that of Private Green, deserter also. After the uninterrupted ceremony, Moussa Isa, in the guise of an ancient beggar, lame, decrepit, and bandaged with foul rags, sought the city and the news of the bazaar.

Limping down the lane in which stood the tall silent house that his master often visited, he saw three men emerge from the well-known low doorway.

Two approached him while one departed in the opposite direction. One of these two held the arm of the other.

“I must hear his voice again. I have not heard his voice again,” urged this one insistently to the other.

“Nay but I have heard thine, thou Dog!” said Moussa Isa to himself, and turning, followed.

In a neighbouring bazaar the man who seemed to lead the other left him at the entrance to a mosque a dark and greasy entry with a short flight of stone steps.

As he set his foot upon the lowest of these, a hand fell upon the neck of the man who had been led, and a voice hissed:

“Salaam! O Ibrahim the Weeper! Salaam! A ‘Hubshi’ would speak with thee....” and another hand joined the first, encircling his throat....

“Art thou dead, Dog?” snarled Moussa Isa, five minutes later....

Moussa Isa never boasted (if he realized the fact) that the collapse of the revolt and mutiny in Gungapur, before the arrival of troops, was due as much to the death of its chief ringleader and director, the blind faquir, as to the disastrous repulse of the great assault upon the Military Prison.

SECTION 2.

It had gone. Nothing remained but to clear up the mess and begin afresh with more wisdom and sounder policy. It was over, and, among other things now possible, Colonel John Robin Ross-Ellison might ask the woman he loved whether she could some day become his wife. He had saved her life, watched over her, served her with mind and body, lived for her. And she had smiled upon him, looked at him as a woman looks at the man she more than likes, had given him the encouragement of her smiles, her trust, affectionate greeting on return from danger, prayers that he would be “careful” when he went forth to danger.

He believed that she loved him, and would, after a decent interval, even perhaps a year hence, marry him.

And then he would abandon the old life and ways, become wholly English and settle down to make her life a happy walk through an enchanted valley. He would take her to England and there, far from all sights, sounds and smells of the East, far from everything wild, turbulent, violent, crush out all the Pathan instincts so terribly aroused and developed during the late glorious time of War. He would take himself cruelly in hand. He would neither hunt nor shoot. He would eat no meat, drink no alcohol, nor seek excitement. He would school himself until he was a quiet, domesticated English country-gentleman respectable and respected, fit husband for a delicately-bred English gentlewoman. And if ever his hand itched for the knife-hilt, his finger for the trigger, his cheek for the rifle-butt, his nostrils for the smell of the cooking-fires, his soul for the wild mountain passes, the mad gallop, the stealthy stalk he would live on cold water until the Old Adam were drowned.

He would be worthy of her and she should never dream what blood was on his hands, what sights he had looked on, what deeds he had done, what part he had played in wild undertakings in wild places. English would he be to the back-bone, to the finger tips, to the marrow; a quiet, clean, straight-dealing Englishman of normal tastes, habits, and life.

Strange if, with all his love of fighting, he could not fight (and conquer) himself. Yes his last great fight should be with himself.... He would call, to-day, at the bungalow to which Mrs. Dearman, prior to starting for Home, had removed as soon as the carefully-guarded Cantonment area was pronounced absolutely safe as a place of residence for the refugees who had been besieged in the old Military Prison.

She would be sufficiently “straight” in her bungalow, by this time, to permit of a formal mid-day call being a reasonable and normal affair....

“Good-morning, Preserver of Gungapur,” said Mrs. Dearman brightly; “have the Victoria Cross and the Distinguished Service Order materialized yet or don’t they give them to Volunteers? What a shame if they don’t!”

“I want something far more valuable and desirable than those, Mrs. Dearman,” said Colonel Ross-Ellison as he took the extended hand of his hostess, who was a picture of coolness and health.

“Oh? and what is that?” she asked, seating herself on a big settee with her back to the light.

“You,” was the direct and uncompromising reply of the man who had been leading a remarkably direct and uncompromising life for several years.

Mrs. Dearman trembled, flushed and paled.

“What do you mean?” she managed to say, with a fine affectation of coolness, unconcern, and indifference.

“I mean what I say,” was the answer. “I want you. I cannot live without you. I want to take care of you. I want to devote my life to making you happy. I want to make you forget this terrible experience and tragedy. You are lonely and I worship you. I want you to marry me when you can later and let me serve you for the rest of my life. Make me the happiest and proudest man in the world and I will strive to be the noblest.”

He was very English then in his fine passion. He took her hand and it was not withdrawn. He bent to look in her eyes, she smiled, and in a second was in his embrace, strained to his breast, her lips crushed by his.

For a minute he could not speak.

“I cannot believe it,” he whispered at length. “Is this a dream?”

“You are a very concrete dream dear,” said Mrs. Dearman, re-arranging crushed and disarranged flowers at her breast, blushing and laughing shyly.

The man was filled with awe, reverence and a deep longing for worthiness.

The woman felt happy in the sense of safety, of power, of pride in the love of so fine a being.

“And how long have you loved me?” she murmured.

“Loved you, Cleopatra? Dearest I have loved you from the moment my eyes first fell on you.... Poor salt-encrusted, weary, bloodshot eyes they were too,” he added, smiling, reminiscent.

“What do you mean?” asked Mrs. Dearman, puzzled.

“Ah I have a secret to tell you a confession that will open those beautiful eyes wide with surprise. I first saw you when you were Cleopatra Brighte.”

“Good gracious!” ejaculated Mrs. Dearman in great surprise. “When_ever_ when?”

“I’ll tell you,” said the man, smiling fondly. “You have my photograph. You took it yourself on board the ’Malaya’.”

“I?” said Mrs. Dearman. “What are you talking about?”

“About you, dearest, and the time when I first saw you and fell in love with you; love at first sight, indeed.”

“But I never photographed you on board ship. I never saw you on a ship. I met you first here in Gungapur.”

“Do you remember the ‘Malaya’ stopping to pick up a shipwrecked sailor, a castaway, in a little dug-out canoe, somewhere in the Indian Ocean, when you were first coming out to India? But of course you do you have the snap-shot in your collection....”

“Why yes I remember, of course but that was a horrid, beastly native. The creature could only speak Hindustani. He was the sole survivor of the crew of some dhow or bunder-boat, they said.... He lived and worked with the Lascars till we got to Bombay. Yes....”

“I was that native,” said Colonel Ross-Ellison.

“You,” whispered Mrs. Dearman. “You,” and scanned his face intently.

“Yes. I. I am half a native. My father was a Pathan. He ”

“What?” asked the woman hoarsely, drawing away. “What? What are you saying?”

“I am half Pathan my father was a Pathan and my mother an Australian squatter’s daughter.”

“Go,” shrieked Mrs. Dearman, springing to her feet. “Go. You wretch! You mean, base liar! To cheat me so! To pretend you were a gentleman. Leave my house! Go! You horrible mongrel you. To take me in your arms! To make love to me! To kiss me! Ugh! I could die for shame! I could die ”

The face of the man grew terrible to see. There was no trace of the West in it, no sign of English ancestry, the face of a mad, blood-mad Afghan.

“We will both die,” he gasped, and took her by the throat.

A few minutes later a Pathan in the dirty dress of his race fled from Colonel Ross-Ellison’s bungalow in Cantonments and took the road to the city.

Threading his way through its tortuous lanes, alleys, slums and bazaars he reached a low door in the high wall that surrounded an almost windowless house, knocked in a particular manner, parleyed, and was admitted.

The moment he was inside, the custodian of the door slammed, locked and bolted it, and then raised an outcry.

“Come,” he shouted in Pushtoo. “The Spy! The Feringhi! The Pushtoo-knowing English dog, that Abdulali Habbibullah,” and he drew his Khyber knife and circled round Ross-Ellison.

A clatter of heavy boots, the opening of wooden “windows” that looked inward on to the high-walled courtyard, and in a minute a throng of Pathans and other Mussulmans entered the compound from the house some obviously aroused from heavy slumber.

“It is he,” cried one, a squat, broad-shouldered fellow, as they stood at gaze, and long knives flashed.

“Oho, Spy! Aha, Dog! For what hast thou come?” asked one burly fellow as he advanced warily upon the intruder, who backed slowly to the angle of the high walls.

“To die, Hidayetullah. To die, Nazir Ali Khan. To die slaying! Come on!” was the reply, and in one moment the speaker’s Khyber knife flashed from his loose sleeve into the throat of the nearest foe.

As he withdrew it, the door-keeper slashed at his abdomen, missed by a hair’s-breadth, raised his arm to save his neck from a slash, and was stabbed to the heart, the knife held dagger-wise. Another Pathan rushing forward, with uplifted knife held as a sword, was met by a sudden low fencing-lunge and fell with a hideous wound, and then, whirling his weapon like a claymore in an invisibly rapid Maltese cross of flashing steel, the man who had been Ross-Ellison drove his enemies before him, whirled about, and established himself in the opposite corner, and spat pungent Border taunts at the infuriated crowd.

“Come on, you village curs, you landless cripples, you wifeless sons of burnt fathers! Come on! Strike for the credit of your noseless mothers! Run not from me as your wives ran from you to better men! Come on, you sweepers, you swine-herds, you down-country street-scrapers!” and they came on to heart’s content, steel clashed on steel and thudded on flesh and bone.

“Get a rifle,” cried one, lying bleeding on the ground, striving to rise while he held his right shoulder to his neck with his partly severed left hand. As he fainted the shoulder gaped horribly.

“Get a cannon,” mocked Ross-Ellison. “Get a cannon, dogs, against one man,” and again, whirling the great jade-handled knife, long as a short sword, he rushed forward and the little mob gave ground before the irresistible claymore-whirl, the unbreakable Maltese cross described by the razor-edge and needle-point.

“It is a devil,” groaned a man, as his knife and his hand fell together to the ground, and he clapped his turban on the stump as a boy claps his hat upon some small creature that he would capture.

The madman whirled about in the third corner and, as he ceased the wild whirl, ducked low and lunged, lessening the number of his enemies by one. This lunge was a new thing to men who could only slash and stab, a new thing and a terrible, for it could not be parried save by seizing the blade and losing half a hand.

“Come on, you growing maidens! Come on, grandmothers! Come on, you cleaners of pig-skins, you washers of dogs! Come on!” and as he shouted, the door crashed down and a patrol of British soldiers, attracted by the noise, and delayed by the stout door, burst into the courtyard.

“At the henemy in front, fixed sights,” shouted the corporal in charge. And added an order not to be found in the drill-book: “Blow ’em to ’ell if they budges.”

In the hush of surprise his voice arose, addressing the fighters: “Bus you bleedin’ soors,” said Corporal Cook. “Bus; and you dekho ’ere. If any of you jaos from where ’e is, I’ll pukkaro ’im and give ’im a punch in the dekho.”

And, as bayonets rose breast-high and fingers curled lovingly round triggers, every knife but that of Ross-Ellison disappeared as by magic, and the Corporal beheld a little crowd of innocent men endeavouring to secure a dangerous lunatic at the risk of their lives terrible risk, as the bodies of five dead and dying men might testify.

“I give myself up to you as a murderer, Corporal,” said he who had been Colonel John Robin Ross-Ellison. “I am a murderer. If you will take me before your officer I will confess and give details.”

“I’m agoin’ to take you bloomin’ well all,” replied the surprised Corporal. “Chuck down that there beastly carvin’ knife. You seem a too ‘andy cove wiv’ it.”

At the Corporal’s order of, “Prod ’em all up agin that wall and shoot any bloke as moves ’and or ’oof,” the party of panting, bleeding and perspiring ruffians was lined up, relieved of its weapons, and duly marched to the guard-room.

Here, one of the gang (later identified as the man who had been known as John Robin Ross-Ellison, and who insisted that he was a Baluchi) declared that he had just murdered Mrs. Dearman in her drawing-room and made a full statement a statement found to be only too true, its details corroborated by a trembling hamal who had peeped and listened, as all Indian servants peep and listen.

Duly tried, all members of the gang received terms of imprisonment (largely a prophylactic measure), save the extraordinary English-speaking Baluchi, who had long imposed, it was said, upon Gungapur Society in the days before that Society had disappeared in the cataclysm.

A few days before the date fixed for the execution of this very remarkable desperado, Captain Michael Malet-Marsac, Adjutant of the Gungapur Volunteer Corps, received two letters dated from Gungapur Jail, one covering the other. The covering letter ran:

“MY DEAR MALET-MARSAC,

“I forward the enclosed. Should you desire to attend the execution you could accompany the new City Magistrate, Wellson, who will doubtless be agreeable.

“Yours sincerely,

“A. RANALD, Major I.M.S.”

The accompaniment was from John Robin Ross-Ellison Mir Ilderim Dost Mahommed Mir Hafiz Ullah Khan.

“MY DEAR OLD FRIEND,

“For the credit of the British I am pretending to be a Baluchi. I am not a Baluchi and I hope to die like a Briton at any rate like a man. I have been held responsible for what I did when I was not responsible, and shall be killed in cold blood by sane people, for what I did in hot blood when quite as mad as any madman who ever lived. I don’t complain I explain. I want you to understand, if you can, that it was not your friend John Ross-Ellison who did that awful deed. It was a Pathan named Ilderim Dost Mahommed. And yet it was I.” ["Poor chap is mad!” murmured the bewildered and horrified reader who had lived in a kind of nightmare since the woman he loved had been murdered by the man he loved. “The strain of the war has been too much for him. He must have had sunstroke too.” He read on, with misty sight.]

“And it is I who will pay the penalty of Ilderim Dost Mahommed’s deed. As I say, I do not complain, and if the Law did not kill me I would certainly kill myself to get rid of Ilderim Dost Mahommed.

“I have thought of doing so and cheating the scaffold, but have decided that Ilderim will get his deserts better if I hang, and I may perhaps get rid of him, thus, for ever.

“Will you come? I would not ask it of any living soul but you, and I ask it because your presence would show me that you blindly believe that it was not John Robin Ross-Ellison who killed poor Mrs. Dearman, and that would enable me to die quite happy. Your presence would also be a great help to me. It would help me to feel that, whatever I have lived, I die a Briton that if I could not live without Ilderim Dost Mahommed I can die without him. But this must seem lunatic wanderings to you.

“I apologize for writing to you and I hesitated long. At length I said, ’I will tell him the truth that the deed was not done by Ross-Ellison and perhaps he will understand, and come’. Mike John Robin Ross-Ellison did not murder Mrs. Dearman.

“Your distracted and broken-hearted ex-friend,

“J.R. ROSS-ELLISON.”

“He was ‘queer’ at times,” said Captain Michael Malet-Marsac. “There was a kink somewhere. The bravest, coolest, keenest chap I ever met, the finest fighting-man, the truest comrade and friend, and from time to time something queer peeped out, and one was puzzled.... Madness in the family, I suppose.... Poor devil, poor, poor devil!” and Captain Malet-Marsac stamped about and swore, for his eyes tingled and his chin quivered.

SECTION 3.

Captain Michael Malet-Marsac alighted from his horse at the great gate of the Gungapur Jail, loosed girths, slid stirrup irons up the leathers to the saddle, and handed his reins to the orderly who had ridden behind him.

“Walk the horses up and down,” said he, for both were sweating and the morning was very cold. Perhaps it was the cold that made Captain Michael Malet-Marsac’s strong face so white, made his teeth chatter and his hands shake. Perhaps it was the cold that made him feel so sick, and that weakened the tendons of his knees so that he could scarcely stand and would fain have thrown himself upon the ground.

With a curious coughing sound, as though he swallowed and cleared his throat at the same moment, he commenced to address another order or remark to the mounted sepoy, choked, and turned his back upon him.

Striding to the gate, he struck upon it loudly with his hunting-crop, and turning, waved the waiting orderly away.

Not for a king’s ransom could he have spoken at that moment. He realized that something which was rising in his throat must be crushed back and swallowed before speech would be possible. If he tried to speak before that was done he would shame his manhood, he would do that which was unthinkable in a man and a soldier. What would happen if the little iron wicket in the great iron door in the greater wooden gates opened before he had swallowed the lump in his throat, had crushed down the rising tumult of emotion, and a European official, perhaps Major Ranald himself, spoke to him? He must either refuse to answer, and show himself too overcome for speech or he must good God forbid it burst into tears. He suffered horribly. His skin tingled and he burnt hotly from head to foot.

And then he swallowed, his will triumphed and he was again as outwardly self-possessed and nonchalant as he strove to appear.

He might tremble, his face might be blanched and drawn, he might feel physically sick and almost too weak and giddy to stand, but he had swallowed, he had triumphed over the rising flood that had threatened to engulf him, and he was, outwardly, himself again. He could go through with it now, and though his face might be ghastly, his lips white, his hand uncertain, his gait considered and careful, he would he able to chat lightly, to meet Ross-Ellison’s jest with jest for that Ross-Ellison would die jesting he knew....

Why did not the door open? Had his knock gone unheard? Should he knock again, louder? And then his eye fell upon the great iron bell-pull and chain, and he stepped towards it. Of course one entered a place like this on the sonorous clanging of a deep-throated bell that roused the echoes of the whole vast congeries of buildings encircled by the hideous twelve-foot wall, unbroken save by the great gatehouse before which he stood insignificant. As his shaking hand touched the bell-pull he suddenly remembered, and withdrew it. He was to meet the City Magistrate outside the jail and enter with him. He could gain admittance in no other way.

He looked at his watch. Seventeen minutes to seven. Wellson should be there in a minute he had said, “At the jail-entrance at 6.45”. God send him soon or the new-found self-control might weaken and a rising tide creep up and up until it submerged his will-power again.

With an effort he swallowed, and turning, strode up and down on a rapid, mechanical sentry-go.

A guard of police-sepoys emerged from a neighbouring guard-room and “fell in” under the word of command of an Inspector. They were armed with Martini-Henry rifles and triangular-bladed bayonets, very long. Their faces looked cruel, the stones of the gate-house and main-guard looked cruel, the beautiful misty morning looked cruel.

Would that damned magistrate never come? Didn’t he know that Malet-Marsac was fighting for his manhood and terribly afraid? Didn’t he know that unless he came quickly Malet-Marsac would either leap on his horse and ride it till it fell, or else lose control inside the jail and either burst into tears, faint, or going mad put up a fight for his friend there in the jail itself, snatch weapons, get back to back with him and die fighting then and there or, later, on the same scaffold? His friend by whose side he had fought, starved, suffered, triumphed his poor two-natured friend....

Could not one of these cursed clever physicians, alienists, psychologists, hypnotists whatever they were have cut the strange savagery and ferocity out of the splendid John Robin Ross-Ellison?...

A buffalo passed, driven by a barely human lout. The lout was free the brainless, soulless bovine lout was free in God’s beautiful world and Ross-Ellison, soldier and gentleman, lay in a stone cell, and in quarter of an hour would dangle by the neck in a pit below a platform perhaps suffering unthinkable agonies who could tell?... His old friend and commandant

Would Wellson never come? What kept the fellow? It was disgraceful conduct on the part of a public servant in such circumstances. Think what an eternity of mental suffering each minute must now be to Ross-Ellison! What was he doing? What were they doing to him? Could the agony of Ross-Ellison be greater than that of Malet-Marsac? It must be a thousand times greater. How could that tireless activity, that restless initiative, that cool courage, that unfathomable ingenuity be quenched in a second? How could such a wild free nature exist in a cell, submit to pinioning, be quietly led like a sheep to the slaughter? He who so loved the mountain, the wild desert, the ocean, the free wandering life of adventure and exploration.

Would Wellson never come? It must be terribly late. Could they have hanged Ross-Ellison already? Could he have gone to his death thinking his friend had failed him; had passed by, like the Levite, on the other side; had turned up a sanctimonious nose at the letter of the Murderer; had behaved as some “friends” do behave in time of trouble?

Could he have died thinking this? If so, he must now know the truth, if the Parsons were right, those unconvincing very-human Parsons of like passions, and pretence of unlike passions. Could his friend be dead, his friend whom he had so loved and admired? And yet he was a murderer and he had murdered ... her....

Captain Michael Malet-Marsac leant against a tree and was violently sick.

Curse the weak frail body that was failing him in his hour of need! It had never failed him in battle nor in athletic struggle. Why should it weaken now. He would see his friend, and bear himself as a man, to help him in his dreadful hour.

Would that scoundrel never come? He was the one who should be hanged.

A clatter of hoofs behind, and Malet-Marsac turned to see the City Magistrate trot across the road from the open country. He drew out his watch accusingly and as a torrent of reproach rose to his white parched lips, he saw that the time was exactly quarter to seven.

“’Morning, Marsac,” said the City Magistrate as he swung down from the saddle. “You’re looking precious blue about the gills.”

“’Morning, Wellson,” replied the other shortly.

To the City Magistrate a hanging was no more than a hair-cut, a neither pleasing nor displeasing interlude, hindering the doing of more strenuous duties; a nuisance, cutting into his early-morning report writing and other judicial work. He handed his reins to an obsequious sepoy, eased his jodhpores at the knee, and rang the bell.

The grille-cover slid back, a dusky face appeared behind the bars and scrutinized the visitors, the grille was closed again and the tiny door opened. Malet-Marsac stepped in over the foot-high base of the door-way and found himself in a kind of big gloomy strong-room in which were native warders and a jailer with a bunch of huge keys. On either side of the room was an office. Following Wellson to a large desk, on which reposed a huge book, he wrote his name, address, and business, controlling his shaking hand by a powerful effort of will.

This done, and the entrance-door being again locked, bolted, and barred, the jailer led the way to another pair of huge gates opposite the pair through which they had entered, and opened a similar small door therein. Through this Malet-Marsac stepped and found himself, light-dazzled, in the vast enclosure of Gungapur Jail, a small town of horribly-similar low buildings, painfully regular streets, soul-stunning uniformity, and living death.

“’Morning, Malet-Marsac,” said Major Ranald of the Indian Medical Service, Superintendent of the jail. “You look a bit blue about the gills, what?”

“’Morning, Ranald,” replied Malet-Marsac, “I am a little cold.”

Was he really speaking? Was that voice his? He supposed so.

Could he pretend to gaze round with an air of intelligent interest? He would try.

A line of convicts, clad in a kind of striped sacking, stood with their backs to a wall while a native warder strode up and down in front of them, watching another convict placing brushes and implements before them. Suddenly the warder spoke to the end man, an elderly stalwart fellow, obviously from the North. The reply was evidently unsatisfactory, perhaps insolent, for the warder suddenly seized the grey beard of the convict, tugged his head violently from side to side, shook him, and then smote him hard on either cheek. The elderly convict gave no sign of having felt either the pain or the indignity, but gazed straight over the warder’s head. Of what was he thinking? Of what might be the fate of that warder were he suddenly transported to the wilds of Kathiawar, to lie at the mercy of his late victim and the famous band of outlaws whom he had once led to fame a fame as wide as Ind?

There was something fine about the old villain, once a real Robin Hood, something mean about the little tyrant.

Had Ranald seen the incident? No, he stood with his back to a buttress looking in the opposite direction. Did he always stand with a wall behind him in this terrible place? How could he live in it? A minute of it made one sick if one were cursed with imagination. Oh, the horror of the prison system especially for brave men, men with a code of honour of their own possibly sometimes a higher code than that of the average British politician, not to mention the be-knighted cosmopolitan financier, friend of princes and honoured of kings.

Could not men be segregated in a place of peace and beauty and improved, instead of being segregated in a dull hell and crushed? What a home of soulless, hopeless horror!... And his friend was here.... Could he contain himself?... He must say something.

“Do you always keep your back to a wall when standing still, in here?” he asked of Major Ranald.

“I do,” was the reply, “and I walk with a trustworthy man close behind me.” “Would you like to go round, sometime?” he added.

“No, thank you,” said Malet-Marsac. “I would like to get as far away as possible and stay there.”

Major Ranald laughed.

“Wouldn’t like to visit the mortuary and see a post-mortem?”

“No, thank you.”

“What about the Holy One?” put in the City Magistrate. “Did you ‘autopsy’ him? A pleasure to hang a chap like him.”

“Yes, the brute. I’ll show you his neck vertebrae presently if you like. Kept ’em as a curiosity. An absolute break of the bone itself. People talk about pain, strangulation, suffocation and all that. Nothing of the sort. Literally breaks the neck. Not mere separation of the vertebrae you know. I’ll show you the vertebra itself clean broken....”

Captain Malet-Marsac swayed on his feet. What should he do? A blue mist floated before his eyes and a sound of rushing waters filled his ears. Was he fainting? He must not faint, and fail his friend. And then, the roar of the waters was pierced and dominated by the voice of that friend saying

“Hul_lo_! old bird. Awf’ly good of you to turn out, such a beastly cold morning.”

John Robin Ross-Ellison had come round an adjacent corner, a European warder on either side of him and another behind him, all three, to their credit, as white as their white uniforms and helmets. On his head was a curious bag-like cap.

Ross-Ellison appeared perfectly cheerful, absolutely natural, and without the slightest outward and visible sign of any form of perturbation.

“’Morning, Ranald,” he continued. “Sorry to be the cause of turning you out in the cold. Gad! isn’t it parky. Hope you aren’t going to keep me standing. If I might be allowed I’d quote unto you the words which a pretty American girl once used when I asked if I might kiss her ’Wade right in, Bub!’”

“’Fraid I can’t ‘wade in’ till seven o’clock er Ross-Ellison,” answered the horribly embarrassed Major Ranald. “It won’t be long.”

“Right O, I was only thinking of your convenience. I’m all right,” said the remarkable criminal, about to suffer by the Mosaic law at the hands of Christians, to receive Old Testament mercy from the disciples of the New, to be done-by as he had done.

An Indian clerk, salaaming, joined the group, and prepared to read from an official-looking document.

“Read,” said Major Ranald, and the clerk in a high sing-song voice, regardless of punctuation, read out the charge, conviction and death-warrant of the man formerly calling himself John Robin Ross-Ellison, and now professing and confessing himself to be a Baluchi. Having finished, the clerk smiled as one well pleased with a duty well performed, salaamed and clacked away in his heelless slippers.

“It is my duty to inquire whether you have anything to say or any last request to make,” said Major Ranald to the prisoner.

“Well, I’ve only to say that I’m sorry to cause all this fuss, y’ know and, well, yes, I would like a smoke,” replied the condemned man, and added hastily: “Don’t think I want to delay things for a moment though but if there is time....”

“It is four minutes to seven,” said Major Ranald, “and tobacco and matches are not supposed to be found in a Government Jail.”

Ross-Ellison winked at the Major and glanced at a bulge on the right side of the breast of the Major’s coat.

At this moment the warder standing behind the condemned man seized both his wrists, drew them behind him and fastened them with a broad, strong strap.

“H’m! That’s done it, I suppose,” said the murderer. “Can’t smoke without my hands. Queer idea too never thought of it before. Can’t smoke without hands.... Rather late in life to realize it, what?”

“Oh, yes, you can,” said the Major, drawing his big silver cheroot-case from his pocket and selecting a cheroot. Placing it between the prisoner’s lips he struck a match and held it to the end of the cigar. Ross-Ellison drew hard and the cigar was lit. He puffed luxuriously and sighed.

“Gad! That’s good,” he said, “May some one do as much for you, old chap, when you come to be er no, I don’t mean that, of course.... Haven’t had a smoke for weeks. Yes you can smoke without hands after all but not for long without feeling the inconvenience. I used to know an American (wicked old gun-running millionaire he was, Cuba way, and down South too) who could change his cigar from one corner of his mouth right across to the other with his tongue. Fascinatin’ sight to watch....”

Captain Malet-Marsac swallowed continuously, lest he lose the faculty of swallowing and be choked.

Major Ranald looked at his watch.

“Two minutes to seven. Come on,” he said, and took the cheroot from the prisoner’s mouth.

“Good-bye, Mike,” said that person to the swallowing fainting wretch. “Don’t try and say anything. I know exactly what you feel. Sorry we can’t shake hands,” and he stepped off in the wake of Major Ranald, closely guarded by three warders.

The City Magistrate and Captain Malet-Marsac followed. At Major Ranald’s knock, the small inner door of the gate-house was opened and the procession filed through it into the strong room where the warders stood to attention. Having re-fastened the door, the jailer opened the outer one and the procession passed out of the jail into the blessed free world, the world that might be such a place of wonder, beauty, delight, health and joy, were man not educated to materialism, false ideals, false standards, and blind strife for nothing worth.

The sepoy-guard stood in a semicircle from the gate-house to the entrance to a door-way in the jail-wall. Ross-Ellison took his last look at the sky, the distant hills, the trees, God’s good world, and then turned into the doorless door-way with his jailers, and faced the scaffold in a square, roofless cell. The warder behind him drew the cap down over his face, and he was led up a flight of shallow stairs on to a platform on which was a roughly-chalked square where two hinged flaps met. As he stood on this spot the noose of the greased rope was placed round his neck by a warder who then looked to Major Ranald for a sign, received it, and pulled over a lever which withdrew the bolts supporting the hinged flaps. These fell apart, Ross-Ellison dropped through the platform, and Christian Society was avenged.

Without a word, Captain Malet-Marsac strode, as in a dream, to his horse, rode home, and, as in a dream, entered his sanctum, took his revolver from its holster and loaded it.

Laying it on the table beside him, he sat down to write a few words to the Colonel of his regiment, Colonel Wilberforce Wriothesley of the 99th Baluch Light Infantry, and to send his will to a brother-officer whom he wished to be his executor.

This done, he took up the revolver, placed the muzzle in his mouth, the barrel pointing upward, and pulled the trigger.

Click!

And nothing more.

A tiny, nerve-shattering, world-shaking, little universe-rocking click and nothing more.

A bad cartridge. He remembered complaints about the revolver ammunition from the Duri Small Arms Ammunition Factory. Too long in stock.

Should he try the same one again, or go on to the next? Probably get better results from the first, as the cap would be already dented by the concussion. He took the muzzle of the big revolver from his aching mouth and, releasing the chamber, spun it round.... He would place it to his temple this time. Holding one’s mouth open was undignified. He raised the revolver and John Bruce burst into the room. He had seen Malet-Marsac ride by, and knew where he had been.

“Half a second!” he shouted. “News! Do that afterwards.”

“What is it?” asked Malet-Marsac, taken by surprise.

“Put that beastly thing in the drawer while I tell you, then. It might go off. I hate pistols,” said Bruce.

Malet-Marsac obeyed. Bruce was a man to be listened to, and what had to be done could be done when he had gone. If it were some last piece of duty or service, it should be seen to.

“It is this,” said Bruce. “You are a liar, a forger, a thief, a dirty pickpocket, a coward, a seller of secrets to Foreign Powers,” and, ere the astounded soldier could speak, John Bruce sprang at him and tried to knock him out. “Take that you greasy cad and fight me if you dare,” he shouted as the other dodged his punch.

Malet-Marsac sprang to his feet, furious, and returned the blow. In a second the men were fighting fiercely, coolly, murderously.

Bruce was the bigger, stronger, more scientific, and there could be but one result, given ordinary luck. It was a long, severe, and punishing affair.

“Time,” gasped Malet-Marsac at length, and dropped his hands. “Get breath fight decently time ’nother round after,” and as he spoke Bruce knocked him down and out, proceeding instantly to tie his feet with the punkah-cord and his hands with two handkerchiefs and a pair of braces. This done, he carried him into his bedroom, and laid him on the bed, and sprinkled his face with water.

Malet-Marsac blinked and stirred.

“Awful sorry, old chap,” said Bruce at length. “I thought it the best plan. Will you give me your word to chuck the suicide idea, or do you want some more?”

“You damned fool! I....” began the trussed one.

“Yes, I know but I solemnly swear I won’t untie you, nor let anybody else, until you’ve promised.”

Malet-Marsac swore violently, struggled valiantly and, anon, slept.

When he awoke, ten hours later, he informed Bruce, sitting by the bed, that he had no intention of committing suicide....

Years later, as a grey-haired Major, he learnt, from the man’s own brother, the story of the strange hero who had fascinated him, and of whose past he had known nothing save that it had been that of a man.