Chapter Thirteen.

Chapter Thirteen.Before the “Starchers.”Singh ran across to the glass on the dressing-table.“Why, Glyn, we can’t see him. I’m bad enough, but you are far worse. What’s to be done?”“I dunno,” cried Glyn. “Who in the world would have thought he was coming down here to-day!”“We are supposed to be in the infirmary, aren’t we?” said Singh. “I say, couldn’t we undress and go to bed?”“No,” said Glyn promptly. “What difference would that make?”“Why, he’d think we were too ill to be seen.”“Nonsense,” cried Glyn. “Wouldn’t he come up and see us all the same?”“Oh dear!” groaned Singh. “What a mess we are in! This comes of your fighting.”“Well, who made me fight? Who began it?”“Well, I suppose it was I,” said Singh; “but I couldn’t stand still and let him knock us both about. Oh dear, what a lot of bother it all is!”“Here, I say, Wrench,” cried Glyn excitedly, “were you sent up to tell us that my father was here?”“No, sir,” said the man, grinning; “but I thought you’d like to know. I must go now, in case my bell rings.”The footman went off hurriedly, and the two boys, after a fresh visit to the looking-glass, tried to make the best of their appearance.Glyn combed his hair down in a streak over one side of his bruised forehead, while Singh poured out some cold water and dabbed and sponged his right eye; but he could not wash away the discoloration that surrounded it, and after applying the towel he plumped himself down in a chair and sat staring at his companion.“It’s no use,” he said; “I daren’t face guardian, and I won’t.”“You tell him so,” said Glyn, laughing, “and see what he will say.”“How am I going to tell him so when I shan’t see him?”“Why, you’ll be obliged to.”“I tell you I won’t!” cried Singh passionately.“There’s a sneak! And you will let me go down alone and face it all.”“Oh, I say, don’t talk like that,” cried Singh. “Can’t we get out of it somehow, old chap? Let’s run away till the Colonel’s gone.”“Yes, of course,” cried Glyn sarcastically. “How much money have you got?”“Oh, I don’t know; half-a-crown and some shillings.”“Oh, I have got more than that. I have got half-a-sovereign. Shall we go to Plymouth, and sail for somewhere abroad?”“Yes, anywhere, so that we don’t have to meet your father.”“Ah,” said Glyn, who was trying very hard to make the lock of hair he had combed over a bruise stop in its place, but it kept jumping up again and curling back to the customary position in spite of applications of cold water and pomatum.“Well, what do you mean by ‘Ah’?” grumbled Singh.“Mean by ‘Ah’?” replied Glyn slowly. “Why, it means what a stupid old chucklehead you are. Run away! Likely, isn’t it?”“Oh, too late! too late!” cried Singh, for there was another sharp tap at the door, and Wrench entered smartly, closely followed by his cat.“Doctor’s compliments, gentlemen, and you are to come down into the drawing-room directly.—And just you go back to the pantry at once,” he shouted at his cat. “How many more times am I to tell you that you are not to follow me up into the young gentlemen’s rooms?”“Bah!” shouted Glyn, and he threw the hairbrush he held smartly at the footman, who caught it cleverly, as if he were fielding a ball at mid-wicket, and deposited it upon the dressing-table.“Well caught, sir!” cried the man, eulogising his own activity. “There, never mind, gentlemen; go down and get it over. There ain’t anything to be ashamed of. If I was you, Mr Severn, I should feel proud at having licked that great big disagreeable chap. I shall be glad to see his back. He’s quite big enough to leave school.”“Ah!” said Glyn with a sigh. “Come on, Singhy; Wrench is right. Let’s get it over; only I want to bathe my face again. It smells of old Mother Hamton’s embro— what did she call it? You may as well go on first. I won’t be long.”“What!” cried Singh, looking aghast at the speaker. “Go down and see him alone? I won’t! He’s not my father; he’s yours. You may go first, and I won’t come unless I’m obliged.”“Won’t you?” said Glyn, laughing softly, and he caught hold of his companion’s wrist and drew it under his arm. “Open the door, Wrenchy, and make way for the hospital—two wounded men going down.—I say, Singhy, look as bad as you can. Here, I know: Wrenchy and I will carry you down in a chair.”Singh opened his mouth quickly and shut it sharply, making his white teeth close together with a snap. Then knitting his brows and drawing a deep breath, he held on tightly to his companion, and walked with him in silence downstairs into the hall. Here the pair stopped short by the drawing-room door, where Wrench slipped before them and raised his hand to show them in; but Glyn caught him by the arm.“Wait a moment,” he said, and the three stood there by the mat, forming a group, listening to the slow, heavy murmur of the Doctor’s voice and the replies given in a loud, sonorous, emphatic tone.“Now,” said Glyn at last.The door was thrown open, and they entered, to face the Doctor, who was seated back in an easy-chair with his hands before him and finger-tips joined; while right in the centre of the hearthrug, his back to the fireplace and legs striding as if he were across his charger, stood the tall grey Colonel, swarthy with sunburn and marked by the scar of a tulwar-cut which had divided his eyebrow and passed diagonally from brow to cheek.He was gazing at the Doctor and listening politely to something he was saying in his soft, smooth voice, but turned his head sharply as the door was opened, and his ultra-long, heavy grey moustache seemed to writhe as he fixed the boys with his keen grey eyes in turn.“Right, Doctor!” he cried, as if he were giving an order to a squadron to advance. “Disgraceful!—Well, you do look a pretty pair!”“I’ll leave you together,” said the Doctor, rising slowly, and then glancing at the boys. “Yes,” he said softly, “dreadfully marked; but you should have seen them, Colonel, directly after their encounter.”“Ha, yes; wounded on the field,” said the Colonel drily. “Thank you. Yes, sir, I think I should like to have a few words with them alone.”For the first time since they had known him the feeling was strong upon the boys that they would have liked their preceptor to stay.But the Doctor gave each of them a grave nod as he moved towards the door, and they both stood as if chained to the carpet till the Colonel made a stride forward, when Glyn recollected himself, ran to the door, and opened it for the Doctor to pass out.The Colonel grunted, and then as the door was closed, he marched slowly across to his son; and as the boy faced him caught him by the shoulder with his right hand, walked him back to where Singh stood alone, grabbed him with his left, and forced them both towards the wide bay window fully into the light.“Stand there!” he said, in commanding tones.Then stooping stiffly to seize the Doctor’s easy-chair by the back, he made the castors squeak as he swung it round and threw himself into it with his back to the window, when he crossed one leg over the other, and sat staring at them fiercely and scanning for some moments every trace of the late encounter.Glyn drew a long, deep breath loudly enough to be heard, while Singh stood with hanging hands, opening and closing his fingers, and passing his tongue quickly over his dry lips. But the Colonel still went on staring at them and frowning heavily the while.At last Singh could bear it no longer.“Oh, say something, sir!” he cried passionately. “Scold us, bully us, punish us if you like; but I can’t bear to be looked at like that.”It was the Colonel’s turn now to draw a deep breath, as he raised himself in the chair a little, thrust one hand behind him, fumbled for his pocket, and then drew out a large soft bandana handkerchief and blew his nose with a blast like a trumpeted order to charge.Then, as he sank back in his chair, “Ha, ha, ha! haw, haw, haw!” he literally roared. “Well, you do look a pretty pair of beauties!” he cried. “But this won’t do. Here, you, Glyn, what do you mean by this, sir? Didn’t I warn you against fighting, and tell you to protect and set an example to young Singh here?”“Yes, father.”“Look at yourself in the glass. You look a pretty pattern, don’t you?”“Yes, father.”“I told you to look at yourself in the glass. Why don’t you?”“Because I know every scratch and bruise thoroughly by heart, father.”“But—” began the Colonel.Here Singh interposed.“It wasn’t his fault, sir,” cried the boy. “It was mine. He didn’t want to fight, and said he wouldn’t.”“Ho!” said the Colonel. “Said he wouldn’t fight, did he.”“Yes, sir, and he actually let the big bully hit him.”“Ha!” said the Colonel. “And then knocked him down for it?”“No, he didn’t, sir,” cried Singh, with his eyes twinkling. “He wouldn’t fight even then.”“Humph!” grunted the Colonel. “And what then?”“Well, it put me in such a rage, sir, that I couldn’t bear it, and I went and hit the big fellow right in the face, and he hit me again.”“Ah, you needn’t tell me that,” replied the Colonel; “that’s plain enough. Well, what after?”“Well, that made Glyn take my part, and he swung me behind him; and oh, sir, he did give the big fellow such an awful thrashing!”“Ha!” said the Colonel, taking his great grey moustache by both hands and drawing it out horizontally. “A thorough thrashing, eh?”“Yes, sir.”“And what were you doing?”“Oh, I was seconding him, sir.”“Oh, that was right. You were not both on him at once?”“Oh no, sir; it was all fair.”“Then Glyn thoroughly whipped him, eh?”“Yes, sir, thoroughly.”The Colonel turned to his son, and looked him over again; and then, after another two-handed tug at his moustache, he said slowly:“I say, Glyn, old chap, you got it rather warmly. But tut, tut, tut, tut! This won’t do. What did that old chap say: ‘Let dogs delight to bark and bite’? Here, I have been talking to the Doctor, and the Doctor has been talking to me. Look here, you, Singh, military fighting, after proper discipline, and done by fighting men, is one thing; schoolboy fighting is quite another, not for gentlemen. It’s low and blackguardly.—Do you hear, Glyn?” he cried turning on his son. “Blackguardly, sir—blackguardly. Look at your faces, sir, and see how you have got yourselves marked. But er—er—”He picked his pocket-handkerchief up from where he had spread it over his knees and blew another blast. “This er—this er—big fellow that you thrashed—big disagreeable fellow—bit of a bully, eh?”“Regular tyrant, father. We hadn’t been here a month, before not a day passed without his insulting Singh or making us uncomfortable.”“Ha! insulted Singh, did he?”“Yes, sir,” cried that individual through his set teeth. “He was always calling me nigger, and mocking at me in some way.”“Humph! Brute! And so, after putting up with a good deal, and obeying my orders till he couldn’t stand it any longer, Glyn took your part and thrashed the fellow, eh?”“Yes, sir, bravely,” cried Singh, with his eyes flashing. “I wish you’d been there to see.”“I wish—”The Colonel stopped short. “No, no. Tut, tut! Nonsense! I did not want to see. Here, hold out your hands, Glyn. No, no, not like that. Double your fists. Hold them out straight. I want to look at your knuckles. Dreadful! Nice state for a gentleman’s hands. Fighting’s bad.—Do you hear, Singh? Very bad. But I must confess that I didn’t get through school without a turn-up or two myself. Glyn took your part, then, and thrashed the fellow. Well, he won’t bully either of you again. Yes, I got into my scrapes when I was a boy; but you know times were different then. Everything was rougher. This sort of thing won’t do. You must be more of gentlemen now—more polished. Fighting’s bad.”“But you let the sergeant, father, teach us how to use the gloves after you had got them over from England.”“Eh? What, sir—what sir?” cried the Colonel sharply. “Well, yes, I did. It was a bit of a lapse, though, and every man makes mistakes. But that, you see, was part of my old education, and through being in India so many years and away from modern civilisation, and er— Of course, I remember; it was after your poor father had been talking to me, Singh, and telling me that he looked to me to make you a thorough English gentleman, one fit to occupy his throne some day, and rule well over his people—firmly, justly, and strongly, as an Englishman would. And, of course, I thought it would be right for you both to know how to use your fists if you were unarmed and attacked by ruffians. And—er, well, well, you see I was not quite wrong. Mind, you know, I detest fighting, and only this morning I have been quite agreeing with the Doctor—fine old gentlemanly fellow, by the way, and a great scholar—agreeing with him, I say, that this fighting is rather a disgrace. At the same time, my boys, as I was about to say, I was not quite wrong about those gloves. You see, it enabled Glyn here to bring skill to bear against a bigger and a stronger man, and er—um—you see, there are other kinds of fighting that a man will have to go through in life; and then when such things do happen, mind this—I mean it metaphorically, you know—when you do have to fight with your fists, or with your tongue, thrash your adversary if you can; but if he from superior skill or strength thrashes you, why then, take it like a man, shake hands, and bear no malice against the one who wins.”The Colonel blew his nose again.“That’s not quite what I wanted to say, my boys; but I shall think this affair over a bit, and perhaps I shall have a few more words to say by-and-by.”“Oh, I say, dad—” cried Glyn.“What do you mean by that, sir?” said the Colonel sharply.“Finish it all now, and don’t bring it up again.”“Glyn!” cried the Colonel sternly.“Yes, father.”“Don’t you dictate to me, sir. I promised the Doctor that I would talk to you both severely about this—this—well, piece of blackguardism, ungentlemanly conduct, and I must keep my word. But I will reserve the rest till after dinner.”“After dinner, father?” cried Glyn eagerly.“Yes. I have come down to stay at Plymborough for a few days at the hotel, and I have told them there that I should have two gentlemen to dine with me to-night, of course, if the Doctor gives his consent.”“Oh, but look at us, sir!” cried Singh. “We are in the infirmary, and not fit to come.”“Infirmary!” said the Colonel scornfully. “Ha, ha! You look infirm both of you!”“Oh, we don’t feel much the matter, father,” said Glyn; “but look at us.”“Look at you, sir? How can I help looking at you? Yes, you do look nice objects.”“But we can’t help it now, sir,” said Singh, “and we should like to come.”“Humph! Yes, of course you’d like to come, my boy, and I want to have you both to finish my lecture after I have thought it out a little more. Well, look here, my lads; you are both bruised and—er—a bit discoloured; but the world isn’t obliged to know that it was done with fists. You might have been thrown off your horses or been upset in a carriage accident. Oh yes, it’s no business of anybody else’s. I shall ask the Doctor to let you come.”“Oh, thank you, father!” cried Glyn eagerly. “But I say, dad, you didn’t shake hands with Singh when we came in.”“Well, no, boy; but—there, there, that’s all right now. You see I had to listen to what the Doctor said. Why, he tells me that you fellows showed them all down here how to deal with a rowdy elephant.”“Singh did, father.”“Well done, boy! You see, that’s one great advantage in learning. Nearly everything comes useful some time or other, and— There, let me see,” he continued, referring to his watch. “I must be off. Visit too long as it is. Ring the bell, one of you. I want to see the Doctor again before I go.”“And you will get us leave, sir?” cried Singh, as he returned from pulling at the bell.“Oh yes, I’ll manage that. Seven o’clock, boys, military time; and now you both be off; but mind this, I am going to finish my lecture after dinner, for I am not satisfied with what I said. There, right about face! March!”As the boys reached the door the handle was turned and the Doctor entered the room.

Singh ran across to the glass on the dressing-table.

“Why, Glyn, we can’t see him. I’m bad enough, but you are far worse. What’s to be done?”

“I dunno,” cried Glyn. “Who in the world would have thought he was coming down here to-day!”

“We are supposed to be in the infirmary, aren’t we?” said Singh. “I say, couldn’t we undress and go to bed?”

“No,” said Glyn promptly. “What difference would that make?”

“Why, he’d think we were too ill to be seen.”

“Nonsense,” cried Glyn. “Wouldn’t he come up and see us all the same?”

“Oh dear!” groaned Singh. “What a mess we are in! This comes of your fighting.”

“Well, who made me fight? Who began it?”

“Well, I suppose it was I,” said Singh; “but I couldn’t stand still and let him knock us both about. Oh dear, what a lot of bother it all is!”

“Here, I say, Wrench,” cried Glyn excitedly, “were you sent up to tell us that my father was here?”

“No, sir,” said the man, grinning; “but I thought you’d like to know. I must go now, in case my bell rings.”

The footman went off hurriedly, and the two boys, after a fresh visit to the looking-glass, tried to make the best of their appearance.

Glyn combed his hair down in a streak over one side of his bruised forehead, while Singh poured out some cold water and dabbed and sponged his right eye; but he could not wash away the discoloration that surrounded it, and after applying the towel he plumped himself down in a chair and sat staring at his companion.

“It’s no use,” he said; “I daren’t face guardian, and I won’t.”

“You tell him so,” said Glyn, laughing, “and see what he will say.”

“How am I going to tell him so when I shan’t see him?”

“Why, you’ll be obliged to.”

“I tell you I won’t!” cried Singh passionately.

“There’s a sneak! And you will let me go down alone and face it all.”

“Oh, I say, don’t talk like that,” cried Singh. “Can’t we get out of it somehow, old chap? Let’s run away till the Colonel’s gone.”

“Yes, of course,” cried Glyn sarcastically. “How much money have you got?”

“Oh, I don’t know; half-a-crown and some shillings.”

“Oh, I have got more than that. I have got half-a-sovereign. Shall we go to Plymouth, and sail for somewhere abroad?”

“Yes, anywhere, so that we don’t have to meet your father.”

“Ah,” said Glyn, who was trying very hard to make the lock of hair he had combed over a bruise stop in its place, but it kept jumping up again and curling back to the customary position in spite of applications of cold water and pomatum.

“Well, what do you mean by ‘Ah’?” grumbled Singh.

“Mean by ‘Ah’?” replied Glyn slowly. “Why, it means what a stupid old chucklehead you are. Run away! Likely, isn’t it?”

“Oh, too late! too late!” cried Singh, for there was another sharp tap at the door, and Wrench entered smartly, closely followed by his cat.

“Doctor’s compliments, gentlemen, and you are to come down into the drawing-room directly.—And just you go back to the pantry at once,” he shouted at his cat. “How many more times am I to tell you that you are not to follow me up into the young gentlemen’s rooms?”

“Bah!” shouted Glyn, and he threw the hairbrush he held smartly at the footman, who caught it cleverly, as if he were fielding a ball at mid-wicket, and deposited it upon the dressing-table.

“Well caught, sir!” cried the man, eulogising his own activity. “There, never mind, gentlemen; go down and get it over. There ain’t anything to be ashamed of. If I was you, Mr Severn, I should feel proud at having licked that great big disagreeable chap. I shall be glad to see his back. He’s quite big enough to leave school.”

“Ah!” said Glyn with a sigh. “Come on, Singhy; Wrench is right. Let’s get it over; only I want to bathe my face again. It smells of old Mother Hamton’s embro— what did she call it? You may as well go on first. I won’t be long.”

“What!” cried Singh, looking aghast at the speaker. “Go down and see him alone? I won’t! He’s not my father; he’s yours. You may go first, and I won’t come unless I’m obliged.”

“Won’t you?” said Glyn, laughing softly, and he caught hold of his companion’s wrist and drew it under his arm. “Open the door, Wrenchy, and make way for the hospital—two wounded men going down.—I say, Singhy, look as bad as you can. Here, I know: Wrenchy and I will carry you down in a chair.”

Singh opened his mouth quickly and shut it sharply, making his white teeth close together with a snap. Then knitting his brows and drawing a deep breath, he held on tightly to his companion, and walked with him in silence downstairs into the hall. Here the pair stopped short by the drawing-room door, where Wrench slipped before them and raised his hand to show them in; but Glyn caught him by the arm.

“Wait a moment,” he said, and the three stood there by the mat, forming a group, listening to the slow, heavy murmur of the Doctor’s voice and the replies given in a loud, sonorous, emphatic tone.

“Now,” said Glyn at last.

The door was thrown open, and they entered, to face the Doctor, who was seated back in an easy-chair with his hands before him and finger-tips joined; while right in the centre of the hearthrug, his back to the fireplace and legs striding as if he were across his charger, stood the tall grey Colonel, swarthy with sunburn and marked by the scar of a tulwar-cut which had divided his eyebrow and passed diagonally from brow to cheek.

He was gazing at the Doctor and listening politely to something he was saying in his soft, smooth voice, but turned his head sharply as the door was opened, and his ultra-long, heavy grey moustache seemed to writhe as he fixed the boys with his keen grey eyes in turn.

“Right, Doctor!” he cried, as if he were giving an order to a squadron to advance. “Disgraceful!—Well, you do look a pretty pair!”

“I’ll leave you together,” said the Doctor, rising slowly, and then glancing at the boys. “Yes,” he said softly, “dreadfully marked; but you should have seen them, Colonel, directly after their encounter.”

“Ha, yes; wounded on the field,” said the Colonel drily. “Thank you. Yes, sir, I think I should like to have a few words with them alone.”

For the first time since they had known him the feeling was strong upon the boys that they would have liked their preceptor to stay.

But the Doctor gave each of them a grave nod as he moved towards the door, and they both stood as if chained to the carpet till the Colonel made a stride forward, when Glyn recollected himself, ran to the door, and opened it for the Doctor to pass out.

The Colonel grunted, and then as the door was closed, he marched slowly across to his son; and as the boy faced him caught him by the shoulder with his right hand, walked him back to where Singh stood alone, grabbed him with his left, and forced them both towards the wide bay window fully into the light.

“Stand there!” he said, in commanding tones.

Then stooping stiffly to seize the Doctor’s easy-chair by the back, he made the castors squeak as he swung it round and threw himself into it with his back to the window, when he crossed one leg over the other, and sat staring at them fiercely and scanning for some moments every trace of the late encounter.

Glyn drew a long, deep breath loudly enough to be heard, while Singh stood with hanging hands, opening and closing his fingers, and passing his tongue quickly over his dry lips. But the Colonel still went on staring at them and frowning heavily the while.

At last Singh could bear it no longer.

“Oh, say something, sir!” he cried passionately. “Scold us, bully us, punish us if you like; but I can’t bear to be looked at like that.”

It was the Colonel’s turn now to draw a deep breath, as he raised himself in the chair a little, thrust one hand behind him, fumbled for his pocket, and then drew out a large soft bandana handkerchief and blew his nose with a blast like a trumpeted order to charge.

Then, as he sank back in his chair, “Ha, ha, ha! haw, haw, haw!” he literally roared. “Well, you do look a pretty pair of beauties!” he cried. “But this won’t do. Here, you, Glyn, what do you mean by this, sir? Didn’t I warn you against fighting, and tell you to protect and set an example to young Singh here?”

“Yes, father.”

“Look at yourself in the glass. You look a pretty pattern, don’t you?”

“Yes, father.”

“I told you to look at yourself in the glass. Why don’t you?”

“Because I know every scratch and bruise thoroughly by heart, father.”

“But—” began the Colonel.

Here Singh interposed.

“It wasn’t his fault, sir,” cried the boy. “It was mine. He didn’t want to fight, and said he wouldn’t.”

“Ho!” said the Colonel. “Said he wouldn’t fight, did he.”

“Yes, sir, and he actually let the big bully hit him.”

“Ha!” said the Colonel. “And then knocked him down for it?”

“No, he didn’t, sir,” cried Singh, with his eyes twinkling. “He wouldn’t fight even then.”

“Humph!” grunted the Colonel. “And what then?”

“Well, it put me in such a rage, sir, that I couldn’t bear it, and I went and hit the big fellow right in the face, and he hit me again.”

“Ah, you needn’t tell me that,” replied the Colonel; “that’s plain enough. Well, what after?”

“Well, that made Glyn take my part, and he swung me behind him; and oh, sir, he did give the big fellow such an awful thrashing!”

“Ha!” said the Colonel, taking his great grey moustache by both hands and drawing it out horizontally. “A thorough thrashing, eh?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And what were you doing?”

“Oh, I was seconding him, sir.”

“Oh, that was right. You were not both on him at once?”

“Oh no, sir; it was all fair.”

“Then Glyn thoroughly whipped him, eh?”

“Yes, sir, thoroughly.”

The Colonel turned to his son, and looked him over again; and then, after another two-handed tug at his moustache, he said slowly:

“I say, Glyn, old chap, you got it rather warmly. But tut, tut, tut, tut! This won’t do. What did that old chap say: ‘Let dogs delight to bark and bite’? Here, I have been talking to the Doctor, and the Doctor has been talking to me. Look here, you, Singh, military fighting, after proper discipline, and done by fighting men, is one thing; schoolboy fighting is quite another, not for gentlemen. It’s low and blackguardly.—Do you hear, Glyn?” he cried turning on his son. “Blackguardly, sir—blackguardly. Look at your faces, sir, and see how you have got yourselves marked. But er—er—”

He picked his pocket-handkerchief up from where he had spread it over his knees and blew another blast. “This er—this er—big fellow that you thrashed—big disagreeable fellow—bit of a bully, eh?”

“Regular tyrant, father. We hadn’t been here a month, before not a day passed without his insulting Singh or making us uncomfortable.”

“Ha! insulted Singh, did he?”

“Yes, sir,” cried that individual through his set teeth. “He was always calling me nigger, and mocking at me in some way.”

“Humph! Brute! And so, after putting up with a good deal, and obeying my orders till he couldn’t stand it any longer, Glyn took your part and thrashed the fellow, eh?”

“Yes, sir, bravely,” cried Singh, with his eyes flashing. “I wish you’d been there to see.”

“I wish—”

The Colonel stopped short. “No, no. Tut, tut! Nonsense! I did not want to see. Here, hold out your hands, Glyn. No, no, not like that. Double your fists. Hold them out straight. I want to look at your knuckles. Dreadful! Nice state for a gentleman’s hands. Fighting’s bad.—Do you hear, Singh? Very bad. But I must confess that I didn’t get through school without a turn-up or two myself. Glyn took your part, then, and thrashed the fellow. Well, he won’t bully either of you again. Yes, I got into my scrapes when I was a boy; but you know times were different then. Everything was rougher. This sort of thing won’t do. You must be more of gentlemen now—more polished. Fighting’s bad.”

“But you let the sergeant, father, teach us how to use the gloves after you had got them over from England.”

“Eh? What, sir—what sir?” cried the Colonel sharply. “Well, yes, I did. It was a bit of a lapse, though, and every man makes mistakes. But that, you see, was part of my old education, and through being in India so many years and away from modern civilisation, and er— Of course, I remember; it was after your poor father had been talking to me, Singh, and telling me that he looked to me to make you a thorough English gentleman, one fit to occupy his throne some day, and rule well over his people—firmly, justly, and strongly, as an Englishman would. And, of course, I thought it would be right for you both to know how to use your fists if you were unarmed and attacked by ruffians. And—er, well, well, you see I was not quite wrong. Mind, you know, I detest fighting, and only this morning I have been quite agreeing with the Doctor—fine old gentlemanly fellow, by the way, and a great scholar—agreeing with him, I say, that this fighting is rather a disgrace. At the same time, my boys, as I was about to say, I was not quite wrong about those gloves. You see, it enabled Glyn here to bring skill to bear against a bigger and a stronger man, and er—um—you see, there are other kinds of fighting that a man will have to go through in life; and then when such things do happen, mind this—I mean it metaphorically, you know—when you do have to fight with your fists, or with your tongue, thrash your adversary if you can; but if he from superior skill or strength thrashes you, why then, take it like a man, shake hands, and bear no malice against the one who wins.”

The Colonel blew his nose again.

“That’s not quite what I wanted to say, my boys; but I shall think this affair over a bit, and perhaps I shall have a few more words to say by-and-by.”

“Oh, I say, dad—” cried Glyn.

“What do you mean by that, sir?” said the Colonel sharply.

“Finish it all now, and don’t bring it up again.”

“Glyn!” cried the Colonel sternly.

“Yes, father.”

“Don’t you dictate to me, sir. I promised the Doctor that I would talk to you both severely about this—this—well, piece of blackguardism, ungentlemanly conduct, and I must keep my word. But I will reserve the rest till after dinner.”

“After dinner, father?” cried Glyn eagerly.

“Yes. I have come down to stay at Plymborough for a few days at the hotel, and I have told them there that I should have two gentlemen to dine with me to-night, of course, if the Doctor gives his consent.”

“Oh, but look at us, sir!” cried Singh. “We are in the infirmary, and not fit to come.”

“Infirmary!” said the Colonel scornfully. “Ha, ha! You look infirm both of you!”

“Oh, we don’t feel much the matter, father,” said Glyn; “but look at us.”

“Look at you, sir? How can I help looking at you? Yes, you do look nice objects.”

“But we can’t help it now, sir,” said Singh, “and we should like to come.”

“Humph! Yes, of course you’d like to come, my boy, and I want to have you both to finish my lecture after I have thought it out a little more. Well, look here, my lads; you are both bruised and—er—a bit discoloured; but the world isn’t obliged to know that it was done with fists. You might have been thrown off your horses or been upset in a carriage accident. Oh yes, it’s no business of anybody else’s. I shall ask the Doctor to let you come.”

“Oh, thank you, father!” cried Glyn eagerly. “But I say, dad, you didn’t shake hands with Singh when we came in.”

“Well, no, boy; but—there, there, that’s all right now. You see I had to listen to what the Doctor said. Why, he tells me that you fellows showed them all down here how to deal with a rowdy elephant.”

“Singh did, father.”

“Well done, boy! You see, that’s one great advantage in learning. Nearly everything comes useful some time or other, and— There, let me see,” he continued, referring to his watch. “I must be off. Visit too long as it is. Ring the bell, one of you. I want to see the Doctor again before I go.”

“And you will get us leave, sir?” cried Singh, as he returned from pulling at the bell.

“Oh yes, I’ll manage that. Seven o’clock, boys, military time; and now you both be off; but mind this, I am going to finish my lecture after dinner, for I am not satisfied with what I said. There, right about face! March!”

As the boys reached the door the handle was turned and the Doctor entered the room.

Chapter Fourteen.A Little Bit about the Past.“Well, boys, glad to see you! Did Dr Justinian say anything to you about coming away to-night?”“No, father; but—Dr Justinian—who do you mean?”“Why, your law-maker and instructor. He spoke very seriously to me about breaking his laws and rules. Well, here you are. Come along. The dining-room is this way.—I have been very busy since I saw you, Singh. I have seen the cook and given him a good talking to, and he has promised us a regular Indian dinner, with curry.”The Colonel laid his hand on Singh’s shoulder, and they passed out into the hall of the hotel.As they were crossing, Morris entered from the other side, nodded and smiled to the boys, raised his hat to the Colonel, who stared at him, and then passing on, went up to the office to speak to the manager.“Friend of yours, boys?” said the Colonel. “Yes, father; one of our masters.”“Oh! What brings him here?”“I don’t know, father. Perhaps he thought you might ask him to dinner.”“Ho!” said the Colonel, with a snort. “Then he thought wrong. Ah—but one moment! Would you like me to ask him, my boy?”“Oh no,” cried Glyn, with a look of dismay. “We want you all to ourselves, father.”“But you, Singh; would you like him to join us?”The boy shrugged his shoulders and shook his head.“No,” he said; “I think like Glyn does,” and Singh clung in a boyish, affectionate manner to the stalwart Colonel’s arm, greatly to that gentleman’s satisfaction.“Then we will have our snug little dinner all to ourselves, boys, and a good long talk about old times and the last news I have had from Dour.—Yes, all right, waiter; serve the dinner at once, and mind everything is very hot.—There you are: snug little table for three. I’ll sit this side with my back to the light, and you two can sit facing it, so that I can look at you both.”“Oh, but that isn’t fair, father,” cried Glyn. “We ought to be with our backs to the light.”“Not at all, sir,” said the Colonel, laughing. “A soldier should never be ashamed of his scars.”The seats were taken, the dinner began, and had not proceeded far before Glyn noticed that the waiter was staring very hard at his bruised face, getting so fierce a look in return that the man nearly dropped the plate he was handing, and refrained from looking at him again.“Better bring candles, waiter,” said the Colonel.—“One likes to see what one is eating, boys;” and as a few minutes later the waiter placed a tall branch with its four wax candles in the centre of the table, the Colonel nodded to Singh. “There,” he said, “now we can all play fair, and you can see my scars.”“Yes,” said Singh, looking at the Colonel fixedly. “There’s the big one quite plain that father used to tell me about.”“Indeed!” said the Colonel sharply. “Why, what did he tell you about it, and when?”“Oh, it was when I was quite a little fellow,” replied Singh. “He said it was in a great fight when three of the rajahs had joined against him to attack him and kill him, and take all his land. He said that there was a dreadful fight, and there were so many of his enemies that he was being beaten.”“Oh—ah—yes,” said the Colonel. “Your father and I had a great many fights with his enemies when the Company sent me to help him with a battery of horse artillery, and to drill his men.”“Was that, father, when you drilled and formed your regiment of cavalry?”“Yes, boy, yes. But never mind the fighting now. That was in the old days. Go on with your dinner.”But Singh did not seem to heed his words, for he was sitting gazing straight before him at the scar on his host’s forehead; and laying down his knife and fork he continued, in a rapt, dreamy way, “And he said he thought his last hour had come, for he and the few men who were retreating with him had placed their backs against a steep piece of cliff, and they were fighting for their lives, surrounded by hundreds of the enemy.”“My dear boy, you are letting your dinner get cold,” said the Colonel, in a petulant way.“Yes,” continued Singh, “and it was all just like a story out of a book. I used to ask father to tell it to me, and when I did he used to smile and make me kneel down before him with my hands on his knees.”“But, my dear Singh,” interposed the Colonel, who looked so annoyed and worried that Glyn kicked his schoolfellow softly under the table, and then coloured up.“Don’t!” cried Singh sharply; and then in his old dreamy tone, “When he told me I used to seem to see it all, with his fierce enemies in their steel caps with the turbans round them, and the chain rings hanging about their necks and their swords flashing in the air as they made cuts at my father’s brave friends; and first one fell bleeding, and then another, till there were only about a dozen left, and my father the Maharajah was telling his men that the time had come when they must make one bold dash at their enemies, and die fighting as brave warriors should.”“Yes, yes, yes, yes!” cried the Colonel querulously. “But that curry is getting cold, my boy, and it won’t be worth eating if it isn’t hot.”“Yes, I’ll go on directly,” continued Singh in the same imperturbable manner, and he leaned his elbows now upon the table, placed his chin upon his hands, and fixed his eyes upon the Colonel’s scar.“I can see it all now so plainly,” he said; and with a quick gesture his host dropped his knife sharply in his plate and clapped his hand across his forehead, while Glyn gave his schoolfellow another thrust—a soft one this time—with his foot.But Singh paid not the slightest heed to his companion’s hint. He only leaned a little more forward to look now in the Colonel’s eyes; and laughing softly he continued:“That doesn’t make any difference. I can see it all just the same, and I seem to hear the roar like thunder father spoke about. He said it was the trampling of horses and the shouting of men, and it was you tearing over the plain from out of the valley, with all the men that you had drilled and made into his brave regiment. They swept over the ground with a rush, charging into the midst of the enemy and cutting right and left till they reached my father and his friends, when a terrible slaughter went on for a few minutes before the enemy turned and fled, pursued by your brave soldiers, who had left their leader wounded on the ground. Father said he had just strength enough to catch you in his arms as you fell from your horse with that terrible gash across your forehead. That was how he said you saved his life and always became his greatest friend.”The Colonel’s lips had parted to check the narration again and again; but he seemed fascinated by the strange look in the boy’s eyes, and for the time being it was as if the whole scene of many years before was being enacted once again; while, to Glyn’s astonishment, the boy slowly rose from his seat, went round to the Colonel’s side of the table, to stand behind his chair till the waiter left the room, and then laying one hand on the old warrior’s shoulder, with the other he drew away that which covered the big scar, and bending over him he said softly:“Father told me I was to try and grow up like you, who saved his life, and that I was always to think of you as my second father when he was gone.”As Singh ended he bent down gently, and softly and reverently kissed the scar, while the Colonel closed his eyes and Glyn noticed that his lips were quivering beneath the great moustache, which seemed to move strangely as if it had been touched.For a few moments then there was a deep silence, during which Singh glided back to his seat, took up his knife and fork, and said, in quite a changed tone of voice:“It always makes me think of that when I sit and look at you. And it comes back, sir, just like a dream. My father the Maharajah told me I was never to forget that story; and I never shall.”Just at that moment the door was opened, and the waiter entered bearing another dish, while through the opening there came a burst of music as if some band were playing a march.“Hah!” cried the Colonel, speaking with quite a start, but with his voice sounding husky and strange, and the words seeming forced as he gave Singh a long and earnest look. “Why, surely that is not a military band?”“No, sir,” said the waiter, as he proceeded to change the plates, two of them having their contents hardly touched. “There’s a wild-beast show in the town, sir, in the field at the back,” and as he spoke the man looked sharply at the boys.“Oh,” said the Colonel with a forced laugh. “Why, boys, is that where your elephant came from?”And then the dinner went on, with the Colonel forcing himself into questioning the boys about their adventure, and from that he brought up the elephants in Dour, and chatted about tiger-shooting and the dangers of the man-eaters in the jungle. But all the time Glyn kept noting that his father spoke as if he had been strangely moved, and that when he turned his eyes upon Singh his face softened and his voice sounded more gentle.As they sat over the dessert, Singh asked him to tell them about one of the other old fights that his father and the Colonel had been in.“Don’t ask me, my boy,” said the Colonel gently. “You can’t understand it perhaps. When you grow as old as I am perhaps you will. But I don’t know. You like Glyn after a fashion, I suppose?”“Like him?” cried Singh half-fiercely. “Why, of course I do!”“Ha!” said the Colonel. “And Glyn likes you, I know; and no wonder—brought up together as you were like brothers. Well, my boy, I went out to India not very much older than you two fellows are, as a cadet in the Company’s service, and somehow or other, being a reckless sort of a fellow, I was sent into several of the engagements with some of the chiefs, and was picked out at last, when I pretty well understood my work, to go to your father’s court as you said, my boy, with half-a-dozen six-pounders and teams of the most dashing Arab horses in the service. Then, somehow, your father got to like me, and I liked him, and then we did a lot of fighting together until he was fixed securely upon his throne, and he never would hear of my leaving him again. But there, you know all about it. He left you to me, Singh, to make a man of you with Glyn here, and I hope to live to go back with you both to Dour and see you safe in your rightful position and fight for you if the need should ever come. And some day I hope that you two boys will have grown into two strong, true-hearted men, with the same brotherly love between you as held your fathers fast. And then— Oh, hang that music! The fellows can’t play a bit. Here, what do you say? Shall we walk into the field and listen to them and see the show? Your elephant too?”“No,” said Singh softly. “Let’s stop here and talk about Dour and my father. We don’t often see you now, sir, and I should like that best.”“To be sure, then, my dear boys, we will stop here. I want you to do what you like best.—But you, Glyn: what do you say?”“I like to hear you talk, father, and to be with you as much as we can.”“That’s good, my boy. Then, to begin with,” cried the Colonel with a chuckle, “I’ll just finish my lecture. I was very nearly letting it slip.”“Oh, but, father,” cried Glyn, “I thought you had looked over all that.”“I have, my boy; but you know I am not good at talking. The Doctor would have given you a splendid lecture on fighting.”“He did,” said Glyn drily, and the Colonel laughed.“I suppose he would, my boys; but since I saw you this morning something occurred to me that I might have mentioned to you. How much do you boys know about Shakespeare?”“Not much, father—neither of us, I am afraid.”“Ah, well, I dare say it will come to you by-and-by; but there are some words that Shakespeare put into the mouth of an old court official inHamlet, when he was bidding his son good-bye before he went abroad. There, don’t yawn, either of you. I am only trying to quote it to you because to my mind they were very good words, and just suitable for you, because they were about fighting: ‘Beware of entrance to a quarrel; but being in, bear’t that the opposer may beware of thee; and—’ Humph! Ah, dear me, let me see; there was something else about borrowing and lending. But never mind that. It was about the fighting that I wanted to speak, and the long and short of it was, don’t fight, boys, if you can possibly help it; but if you do fight, show the other fellow that you know how. There, that’s enough about that. Now then, what shall we talk about next?—Yes, waiter, what is it?”“Beg pardon, sir, but there’s a person, sir, in the hall wants to know if he can see the young gentlemen.”“Eh? Who is it?” said the Colonel sharply. “Not one of the masters?”“No, sir. It’s the proprietor, sir, of the big wild-beast show, sir, in the field—Mr Ramball, sir.”“Oh, pooh! pooh!” cried the Colonel. “Tell him the young gentlemen are engaged, and don’t care to visit his show to-night.”“Yes, sir. But beg pardon, sir, I don’t think it’s about that. He’s in great trouble about something, sir. He’s well-known here, sir; has a large farm two or three miles away where he keeps his wild things when he’s not taking them round the country.”“Well, but—” began the Colonel.“Said it was very particular business, sir, and he must see the young gentlemen.”“Why, it must be something about his elephant, father,” cried Glyn eagerly.“Well, but, my dear boys, you can’t be at the beck and call of this man because he owns animals that he can’t manage. But there, there, I don’t want you two to withhold help when you can give it. We’ll hear what he has to say.—We’ll come out and speak to him.—I’ll come, boys, because you may want to refer to me.”The little party followed the waiter out into the hall, where Ramball was standing, hat in one hand, yellow handkerchief in the other, dabbing his bald head and looking very much excited.“Hah!” he cried. “There you are, gentlemen!” And he put his handkerchief on the top of his head and made a movement as if to thrust his hat into his pocket, but recollected himself and put the handkerchief into the hat instead. “I have been up to the school, gentlemen— Your servant, sir. I beg pardon for interrupting you; but I have been up to the school to ask for the young gentlemen there, and I saw Mr Wrench the Doctor’s man, and he said that you had come on here to dinner.—Pray, pray, gentlemen, come and help me, or I am a ruined man.”“Why, what’s the matter?” cried Singh and Glyn in a breath.“Didn’t you hear, gentlemen? He’s got away again—pulled the iron picket out of the ground, and gone off with the chain and all chinkupping from his leg. I have got men out all over scouring the country, and as soon as they have found out where he is I’d take it kindly, gentlemen, if you’d come and bring him home.”“Come, come, my man,” said the Colonel good-humouredly, “isn’t this rather cool?”“Cool, sir! It’s too hot to be borne. That great beast will be the death of me before he’s done. Do say a kind word for me, sir, to the young gents. They have got a power over that beast as beats miracles. I wouldn’t ask, sir, but I’m about done. I should have shot him the other day if these ’ere young gents hadn’t stopped me and showed me, a man of fifty, as has handled poisonous snakes and gone after lions before now when they’d got out—showed me, I say, that I didn’t understand my work.”“Oh, well,” said the Colonel, “I—I—”At that moment the elephant’s keeper and another man, a driver of one of the caravans, hurried excitedly into the hotel hall, dragging between them a miserable-looking object, drenched with mud and water, and trembling in every limb.“Mr Ramball, sir!” cried the keeper.“What, have you found him?” cried the proprietor.“No, sir; but we’ve come across this chap, as has got a cock-and-bull story about something, and I think it means that he’s seen him.”“Yes—what? Where? How?” cried Ramball, catching hold of the man by the shoulders and letting go again directly, to dive into his hat for his handkerchief. “Why, you are all wet and muddy!” he cried, wiping his hands. “Where did you see him?”“The giant, sir?” said the poor fellow, shivering.“Giant?” cried Ramball. “Well, yes, giant if you like. Where did you see him?”“It was about a mile down the road, sir, and we was coming down the Cut Lane with a load of clover, my mate and me, which we had been to fetch for the governor’s horses in the yard here. My mate was driving, and I was sitting on a heap of the clover, stacked up on the hind ladder of the cart. We’d stopped a while after loading up, being a bit tired, to give the horses a drink, and it had got dark, while as we was coming home, me sitting behind as I telled you, and my mate driving in front, all of a suddent, and just as I was half-asleep and smoking my pipe, a great big giant loomed up on t’other side of the hedge, and before I knew where I was he reaches down, slips his arm round me, and lifts me right out of the cart.”The man wiped his face with his muddy hand and uttered a low groan.“Well, go on,” cried Ramball. “What next?”“Don’t hurry me, master, please,” said the man piteously. “I’m shook all to pieces, and feel that freckened that I could sit down and cry. I was too much staggered to call out for help, and when I tried to look round, my mate and the cart was gone, and this ’ere great thing was carrying me away right across Snow’s field, and all I could think of was that he was hungry and had made me his prey.”“Humph! An ogre, I suppose,” said the Colonel to the boys.“No, sir,” said the man; “it was one of them there great giants as you read of in books; and no matter how I tried to get away, he only hugged me the tighter.”“Well, well,” said the Colonel; “but you did escape.”“No, sir; I didn’t, sir. He carried me right across the field and dropped me into the big horse-pond in the corner. I was half-drowned, I was; and when I struggled to the side my legs stuck in the mud right up to my knees. And then I found that I had come out, half-blind with mud and water, just where he was standing with his back to me, and then I daren’t move. But he took no more notice of me, and walked right off, so that I saved my life. Next thing was I come upon your two men, Mr Ramball, sir, and they got asking me questions; but I was too skeart to understand what they meant, and so they brought me here.—You don’t know, I suppose,” he continued, speaking to one of the waiters who had come into the hall, “whether my mate came home safely with the clover cart?”“Bah!” cried Ramball. “With your giant indeed! Which way did he go?”“I dunno, sir; it was too dark. But it were a giant. I could swear to him if I saw him again. I should know him by his trowges.”“Know him by what?” cried the Colonel, laughing heartily.“By his trowges, sir. I was down in the mud close behind him, and I could see right up his great legs to his waist. I couldn’t see any farther, he was so big. Awful giant, he was. You may take my word, sir, for that.”“Bah!” roared the proprietor. “Here, my lads, he’s frightened this poor lad nearly into fits, and we are wasting time. Off with you, and follow his track from the spot where you found the man. Run him down, and then don’t do anything more to scare him or make him turn nasty; but one of you stop and watch, and t’other come back here and tell me where he is.”The two keepers obeyed promptly, and hurried away, while one of the waiters sent the scared carter out into the kitchen.“That’s ’im, sir,” said Ramball; “and if the young gents would just give me a hand to make things easy—”“Yes, yes,” said the Colonel; “but from what I know of elephants, that great brute may go wandering about through the country for half the night. You’d better go after your men and track him. He’ll be most likely in some turnip-field having a gorge, and if you can’t get him quietly back come to me again and I’ll see what I can do.”“Beg pardon, sir,” said Ramball quietly, “I am ready for anything now, cunning as I used to think myself. But does your honour understand elephants?”“Does he understand elephants, Glyn!” cried Singh.—“Why, Mr Ramball, my friend’s father has trapped scores out in the Terai.”“Of course he has, sir,” said Ramball.—“Thank you kindly, then, sir. I’ll have my pony put to and go after him at once.”Ramball hurried out of the hall, and the Colonel with his young guests was about to return to the dining-room when they found that Morris and Professor Barclay were standing close behind them.“Quite a succession of adventures, Mr Singh,” said Morris.“Yes,” said the Professor, “and most interesting your knowledge of the habits of those great beasts.”“Yes, exactly,” said the Colonel drily. “They are rather difficult to deal with.—Come boys,” and he led the way into the dining-room. “There, sit down for a bit,” he said, resuming his old seat. “Are both those your masters, Glyn, my boy?”“No, father; only one. The other’s a friend of his, I think.”“What, that rather shady-looking individual?”“No, father, the Professor—Professor Barclay. He dined at the Doctor’s the other night.”“Oh,” said the Colonel. “Well, I don’t wish to be too exclusive; but somehow I never care for strangers who are so very eager to make friends.”“But oughtn’t we to have gone to help find the elephant, father?” said Glyn.“No, my boy, I think not. You are my guests to-night, and we don’t often meet. If they find him, and there is any real necessity, perhaps we will go; but we shall see.”They did not see; for a quiet chat was enjoyed for another half-hour, and then the Colonel walked with them to the Doctor’s gates and said goodnight.

“Well, boys, glad to see you! Did Dr Justinian say anything to you about coming away to-night?”

“No, father; but—Dr Justinian—who do you mean?”

“Why, your law-maker and instructor. He spoke very seriously to me about breaking his laws and rules. Well, here you are. Come along. The dining-room is this way.—I have been very busy since I saw you, Singh. I have seen the cook and given him a good talking to, and he has promised us a regular Indian dinner, with curry.”

The Colonel laid his hand on Singh’s shoulder, and they passed out into the hall of the hotel.

As they were crossing, Morris entered from the other side, nodded and smiled to the boys, raised his hat to the Colonel, who stared at him, and then passing on, went up to the office to speak to the manager.

“Friend of yours, boys?” said the Colonel. “Yes, father; one of our masters.”

“Oh! What brings him here?”

“I don’t know, father. Perhaps he thought you might ask him to dinner.”

“Ho!” said the Colonel, with a snort. “Then he thought wrong. Ah—but one moment! Would you like me to ask him, my boy?”

“Oh no,” cried Glyn, with a look of dismay. “We want you all to ourselves, father.”

“But you, Singh; would you like him to join us?”

The boy shrugged his shoulders and shook his head.

“No,” he said; “I think like Glyn does,” and Singh clung in a boyish, affectionate manner to the stalwart Colonel’s arm, greatly to that gentleman’s satisfaction.

“Then we will have our snug little dinner all to ourselves, boys, and a good long talk about old times and the last news I have had from Dour.—Yes, all right, waiter; serve the dinner at once, and mind everything is very hot.—There you are: snug little table for three. I’ll sit this side with my back to the light, and you two can sit facing it, so that I can look at you both.”

“Oh, but that isn’t fair, father,” cried Glyn. “We ought to be with our backs to the light.”

“Not at all, sir,” said the Colonel, laughing. “A soldier should never be ashamed of his scars.”

The seats were taken, the dinner began, and had not proceeded far before Glyn noticed that the waiter was staring very hard at his bruised face, getting so fierce a look in return that the man nearly dropped the plate he was handing, and refrained from looking at him again.

“Better bring candles, waiter,” said the Colonel.—“One likes to see what one is eating, boys;” and as a few minutes later the waiter placed a tall branch with its four wax candles in the centre of the table, the Colonel nodded to Singh. “There,” he said, “now we can all play fair, and you can see my scars.”

“Yes,” said Singh, looking at the Colonel fixedly. “There’s the big one quite plain that father used to tell me about.”

“Indeed!” said the Colonel sharply. “Why, what did he tell you about it, and when?”

“Oh, it was when I was quite a little fellow,” replied Singh. “He said it was in a great fight when three of the rajahs had joined against him to attack him and kill him, and take all his land. He said that there was a dreadful fight, and there were so many of his enemies that he was being beaten.”

“Oh—ah—yes,” said the Colonel. “Your father and I had a great many fights with his enemies when the Company sent me to help him with a battery of horse artillery, and to drill his men.”

“Was that, father, when you drilled and formed your regiment of cavalry?”

“Yes, boy, yes. But never mind the fighting now. That was in the old days. Go on with your dinner.”

But Singh did not seem to heed his words, for he was sitting gazing straight before him at the scar on his host’s forehead; and laying down his knife and fork he continued, in a rapt, dreamy way, “And he said he thought his last hour had come, for he and the few men who were retreating with him had placed their backs against a steep piece of cliff, and they were fighting for their lives, surrounded by hundreds of the enemy.”

“My dear boy, you are letting your dinner get cold,” said the Colonel, in a petulant way.

“Yes,” continued Singh, “and it was all just like a story out of a book. I used to ask father to tell it to me, and when I did he used to smile and make me kneel down before him with my hands on his knees.”

“But, my dear Singh,” interposed the Colonel, who looked so annoyed and worried that Glyn kicked his schoolfellow softly under the table, and then coloured up.

“Don’t!” cried Singh sharply; and then in his old dreamy tone, “When he told me I used to seem to see it all, with his fierce enemies in their steel caps with the turbans round them, and the chain rings hanging about their necks and their swords flashing in the air as they made cuts at my father’s brave friends; and first one fell bleeding, and then another, till there were only about a dozen left, and my father the Maharajah was telling his men that the time had come when they must make one bold dash at their enemies, and die fighting as brave warriors should.”

“Yes, yes, yes, yes!” cried the Colonel querulously. “But that curry is getting cold, my boy, and it won’t be worth eating if it isn’t hot.”

“Yes, I’ll go on directly,” continued Singh in the same imperturbable manner, and he leaned his elbows now upon the table, placed his chin upon his hands, and fixed his eyes upon the Colonel’s scar.

“I can see it all now so plainly,” he said; and with a quick gesture his host dropped his knife sharply in his plate and clapped his hand across his forehead, while Glyn gave his schoolfellow another thrust—a soft one this time—with his foot.

But Singh paid not the slightest heed to his companion’s hint. He only leaned a little more forward to look now in the Colonel’s eyes; and laughing softly he continued:

“That doesn’t make any difference. I can see it all just the same, and I seem to hear the roar like thunder father spoke about. He said it was the trampling of horses and the shouting of men, and it was you tearing over the plain from out of the valley, with all the men that you had drilled and made into his brave regiment. They swept over the ground with a rush, charging into the midst of the enemy and cutting right and left till they reached my father and his friends, when a terrible slaughter went on for a few minutes before the enemy turned and fled, pursued by your brave soldiers, who had left their leader wounded on the ground. Father said he had just strength enough to catch you in his arms as you fell from your horse with that terrible gash across your forehead. That was how he said you saved his life and always became his greatest friend.”

The Colonel’s lips had parted to check the narration again and again; but he seemed fascinated by the strange look in the boy’s eyes, and for the time being it was as if the whole scene of many years before was being enacted once again; while, to Glyn’s astonishment, the boy slowly rose from his seat, went round to the Colonel’s side of the table, to stand behind his chair till the waiter left the room, and then laying one hand on the old warrior’s shoulder, with the other he drew away that which covered the big scar, and bending over him he said softly:

“Father told me I was to try and grow up like you, who saved his life, and that I was always to think of you as my second father when he was gone.”

As Singh ended he bent down gently, and softly and reverently kissed the scar, while the Colonel closed his eyes and Glyn noticed that his lips were quivering beneath the great moustache, which seemed to move strangely as if it had been touched.

For a few moments then there was a deep silence, during which Singh glided back to his seat, took up his knife and fork, and said, in quite a changed tone of voice:

“It always makes me think of that when I sit and look at you. And it comes back, sir, just like a dream. My father the Maharajah told me I was never to forget that story; and I never shall.”

Just at that moment the door was opened, and the waiter entered bearing another dish, while through the opening there came a burst of music as if some band were playing a march.

“Hah!” cried the Colonel, speaking with quite a start, but with his voice sounding husky and strange, and the words seeming forced as he gave Singh a long and earnest look. “Why, surely that is not a military band?”

“No, sir,” said the waiter, as he proceeded to change the plates, two of them having their contents hardly touched. “There’s a wild-beast show in the town, sir, in the field at the back,” and as he spoke the man looked sharply at the boys.

“Oh,” said the Colonel with a forced laugh. “Why, boys, is that where your elephant came from?”

And then the dinner went on, with the Colonel forcing himself into questioning the boys about their adventure, and from that he brought up the elephants in Dour, and chatted about tiger-shooting and the dangers of the man-eaters in the jungle. But all the time Glyn kept noting that his father spoke as if he had been strangely moved, and that when he turned his eyes upon Singh his face softened and his voice sounded more gentle.

As they sat over the dessert, Singh asked him to tell them about one of the other old fights that his father and the Colonel had been in.

“Don’t ask me, my boy,” said the Colonel gently. “You can’t understand it perhaps. When you grow as old as I am perhaps you will. But I don’t know. You like Glyn after a fashion, I suppose?”

“Like him?” cried Singh half-fiercely. “Why, of course I do!”

“Ha!” said the Colonel. “And Glyn likes you, I know; and no wonder—brought up together as you were like brothers. Well, my boy, I went out to India not very much older than you two fellows are, as a cadet in the Company’s service, and somehow or other, being a reckless sort of a fellow, I was sent into several of the engagements with some of the chiefs, and was picked out at last, when I pretty well understood my work, to go to your father’s court as you said, my boy, with half-a-dozen six-pounders and teams of the most dashing Arab horses in the service. Then, somehow, your father got to like me, and I liked him, and then we did a lot of fighting together until he was fixed securely upon his throne, and he never would hear of my leaving him again. But there, you know all about it. He left you to me, Singh, to make a man of you with Glyn here, and I hope to live to go back with you both to Dour and see you safe in your rightful position and fight for you if the need should ever come. And some day I hope that you two boys will have grown into two strong, true-hearted men, with the same brotherly love between you as held your fathers fast. And then— Oh, hang that music! The fellows can’t play a bit. Here, what do you say? Shall we walk into the field and listen to them and see the show? Your elephant too?”

“No,” said Singh softly. “Let’s stop here and talk about Dour and my father. We don’t often see you now, sir, and I should like that best.”

“To be sure, then, my dear boys, we will stop here. I want you to do what you like best.—But you, Glyn: what do you say?”

“I like to hear you talk, father, and to be with you as much as we can.”

“That’s good, my boy. Then, to begin with,” cried the Colonel with a chuckle, “I’ll just finish my lecture. I was very nearly letting it slip.”

“Oh, but, father,” cried Glyn, “I thought you had looked over all that.”

“I have, my boy; but you know I am not good at talking. The Doctor would have given you a splendid lecture on fighting.”

“He did,” said Glyn drily, and the Colonel laughed.

“I suppose he would, my boys; but since I saw you this morning something occurred to me that I might have mentioned to you. How much do you boys know about Shakespeare?”

“Not much, father—neither of us, I am afraid.”

“Ah, well, I dare say it will come to you by-and-by; but there are some words that Shakespeare put into the mouth of an old court official inHamlet, when he was bidding his son good-bye before he went abroad. There, don’t yawn, either of you. I am only trying to quote it to you because to my mind they were very good words, and just suitable for you, because they were about fighting: ‘Beware of entrance to a quarrel; but being in, bear’t that the opposer may beware of thee; and—’ Humph! Ah, dear me, let me see; there was something else about borrowing and lending. But never mind that. It was about the fighting that I wanted to speak, and the long and short of it was, don’t fight, boys, if you can possibly help it; but if you do fight, show the other fellow that you know how. There, that’s enough about that. Now then, what shall we talk about next?—Yes, waiter, what is it?”

“Beg pardon, sir, but there’s a person, sir, in the hall wants to know if he can see the young gentlemen.”

“Eh? Who is it?” said the Colonel sharply. “Not one of the masters?”

“No, sir. It’s the proprietor, sir, of the big wild-beast show, sir, in the field—Mr Ramball, sir.”

“Oh, pooh! pooh!” cried the Colonel. “Tell him the young gentlemen are engaged, and don’t care to visit his show to-night.”

“Yes, sir. But beg pardon, sir, I don’t think it’s about that. He’s in great trouble about something, sir. He’s well-known here, sir; has a large farm two or three miles away where he keeps his wild things when he’s not taking them round the country.”

“Well, but—” began the Colonel.

“Said it was very particular business, sir, and he must see the young gentlemen.”

“Why, it must be something about his elephant, father,” cried Glyn eagerly.

“Well, but, my dear boys, you can’t be at the beck and call of this man because he owns animals that he can’t manage. But there, there, I don’t want you two to withhold help when you can give it. We’ll hear what he has to say.—We’ll come out and speak to him.—I’ll come, boys, because you may want to refer to me.”

The little party followed the waiter out into the hall, where Ramball was standing, hat in one hand, yellow handkerchief in the other, dabbing his bald head and looking very much excited.

“Hah!” he cried. “There you are, gentlemen!” And he put his handkerchief on the top of his head and made a movement as if to thrust his hat into his pocket, but recollected himself and put the handkerchief into the hat instead. “I have been up to the school, gentlemen— Your servant, sir. I beg pardon for interrupting you; but I have been up to the school to ask for the young gentlemen there, and I saw Mr Wrench the Doctor’s man, and he said that you had come on here to dinner.—Pray, pray, gentlemen, come and help me, or I am a ruined man.”

“Why, what’s the matter?” cried Singh and Glyn in a breath.

“Didn’t you hear, gentlemen? He’s got away again—pulled the iron picket out of the ground, and gone off with the chain and all chinkupping from his leg. I have got men out all over scouring the country, and as soon as they have found out where he is I’d take it kindly, gentlemen, if you’d come and bring him home.”

“Come, come, my man,” said the Colonel good-humouredly, “isn’t this rather cool?”

“Cool, sir! It’s too hot to be borne. That great beast will be the death of me before he’s done. Do say a kind word for me, sir, to the young gents. They have got a power over that beast as beats miracles. I wouldn’t ask, sir, but I’m about done. I should have shot him the other day if these ’ere young gents hadn’t stopped me and showed me, a man of fifty, as has handled poisonous snakes and gone after lions before now when they’d got out—showed me, I say, that I didn’t understand my work.”

“Oh, well,” said the Colonel, “I—I—”

At that moment the elephant’s keeper and another man, a driver of one of the caravans, hurried excitedly into the hotel hall, dragging between them a miserable-looking object, drenched with mud and water, and trembling in every limb.

“Mr Ramball, sir!” cried the keeper.

“What, have you found him?” cried the proprietor.

“No, sir; but we’ve come across this chap, as has got a cock-and-bull story about something, and I think it means that he’s seen him.”

“Yes—what? Where? How?” cried Ramball, catching hold of the man by the shoulders and letting go again directly, to dive into his hat for his handkerchief. “Why, you are all wet and muddy!” he cried, wiping his hands. “Where did you see him?”

“The giant, sir?” said the poor fellow, shivering.

“Giant?” cried Ramball. “Well, yes, giant if you like. Where did you see him?”

“It was about a mile down the road, sir, and we was coming down the Cut Lane with a load of clover, my mate and me, which we had been to fetch for the governor’s horses in the yard here. My mate was driving, and I was sitting on a heap of the clover, stacked up on the hind ladder of the cart. We’d stopped a while after loading up, being a bit tired, to give the horses a drink, and it had got dark, while as we was coming home, me sitting behind as I telled you, and my mate driving in front, all of a suddent, and just as I was half-asleep and smoking my pipe, a great big giant loomed up on t’other side of the hedge, and before I knew where I was he reaches down, slips his arm round me, and lifts me right out of the cart.”

The man wiped his face with his muddy hand and uttered a low groan.

“Well, go on,” cried Ramball. “What next?”

“Don’t hurry me, master, please,” said the man piteously. “I’m shook all to pieces, and feel that freckened that I could sit down and cry. I was too much staggered to call out for help, and when I tried to look round, my mate and the cart was gone, and this ’ere great thing was carrying me away right across Snow’s field, and all I could think of was that he was hungry and had made me his prey.”

“Humph! An ogre, I suppose,” said the Colonel to the boys.

“No, sir,” said the man; “it was one of them there great giants as you read of in books; and no matter how I tried to get away, he only hugged me the tighter.”

“Well, well,” said the Colonel; “but you did escape.”

“No, sir; I didn’t, sir. He carried me right across the field and dropped me into the big horse-pond in the corner. I was half-drowned, I was; and when I struggled to the side my legs stuck in the mud right up to my knees. And then I found that I had come out, half-blind with mud and water, just where he was standing with his back to me, and then I daren’t move. But he took no more notice of me, and walked right off, so that I saved my life. Next thing was I come upon your two men, Mr Ramball, sir, and they got asking me questions; but I was too skeart to understand what they meant, and so they brought me here.—You don’t know, I suppose,” he continued, speaking to one of the waiters who had come into the hall, “whether my mate came home safely with the clover cart?”

“Bah!” cried Ramball. “With your giant indeed! Which way did he go?”

“I dunno, sir; it was too dark. But it were a giant. I could swear to him if I saw him again. I should know him by his trowges.”

“Know him by what?” cried the Colonel, laughing heartily.

“By his trowges, sir. I was down in the mud close behind him, and I could see right up his great legs to his waist. I couldn’t see any farther, he was so big. Awful giant, he was. You may take my word, sir, for that.”

“Bah!” roared the proprietor. “Here, my lads, he’s frightened this poor lad nearly into fits, and we are wasting time. Off with you, and follow his track from the spot where you found the man. Run him down, and then don’t do anything more to scare him or make him turn nasty; but one of you stop and watch, and t’other come back here and tell me where he is.”

The two keepers obeyed promptly, and hurried away, while one of the waiters sent the scared carter out into the kitchen.

“That’s ’im, sir,” said Ramball; “and if the young gents would just give me a hand to make things easy—”

“Yes, yes,” said the Colonel; “but from what I know of elephants, that great brute may go wandering about through the country for half the night. You’d better go after your men and track him. He’ll be most likely in some turnip-field having a gorge, and if you can’t get him quietly back come to me again and I’ll see what I can do.”

“Beg pardon, sir,” said Ramball quietly, “I am ready for anything now, cunning as I used to think myself. But does your honour understand elephants?”

“Does he understand elephants, Glyn!” cried Singh.—“Why, Mr Ramball, my friend’s father has trapped scores out in the Terai.”

“Of course he has, sir,” said Ramball.—“Thank you kindly, then, sir. I’ll have my pony put to and go after him at once.”

Ramball hurried out of the hall, and the Colonel with his young guests was about to return to the dining-room when they found that Morris and Professor Barclay were standing close behind them.

“Quite a succession of adventures, Mr Singh,” said Morris.

“Yes,” said the Professor, “and most interesting your knowledge of the habits of those great beasts.”

“Yes, exactly,” said the Colonel drily. “They are rather difficult to deal with.—Come boys,” and he led the way into the dining-room. “There, sit down for a bit,” he said, resuming his old seat. “Are both those your masters, Glyn, my boy?”

“No, father; only one. The other’s a friend of his, I think.”

“What, that rather shady-looking individual?”

“No, father, the Professor—Professor Barclay. He dined at the Doctor’s the other night.”

“Oh,” said the Colonel. “Well, I don’t wish to be too exclusive; but somehow I never care for strangers who are so very eager to make friends.”

“But oughtn’t we to have gone to help find the elephant, father?” said Glyn.

“No, my boy, I think not. You are my guests to-night, and we don’t often meet. If they find him, and there is any real necessity, perhaps we will go; but we shall see.”

They did not see; for a quiet chat was enjoyed for another half-hour, and then the Colonel walked with them to the Doctor’s gates and said goodnight.

Chapter Fifteen.The Rajah’s Morning Call.“Singh!”There was no answer. “Singh! Oh, what a sleepy old mongoose it is! Singhy! What’s that row out in the playground?”It was early dawn. The first faint rays of day were peering in on both sides of the drawn blind, the speaker was Glyn, and the words were uttered in consequence of a peculiar clanking noise heard out in the play-yard.Now, the most common-sense way of finding out the meaning of the noise which had awakened the boy from a deep sleep would have been to jump out of bed, draw up the blind, and throw up the window, letting in the fresh, cool morning air, as the head was thrust out and eyes brought to bear upon the dimly seen shadowy space below. But Glyn felt very drowsy, exceedingly comfortable, and not in the slightest degree disposed to stir. Consequently he called across the little room to the other bed, and, as before said, there was no reply.“Oh, you are a sleepy one!” muttered the boy, and reaching up his hands he turned them into a catapult, seizing the pillow by both ends, and drawing it upwards from beneath his head, when without rising he hurled it across at Singh, striking him with a pretty good whop.“Great cowardly bully; that’s what you are,” muttered the boy. “Oh, I wish I was ten times as strong! Take that, and that, and that!”The commands were accompanied by a heavy panting, and the sound of blows.“Why, what’s he doing?” said Glyn to himself, growing more wakeful, and beginning to chuckle as he grasped the situation. “Oh, what a game!” he said softly. “He’s lying on his back, and got the nightmare, only it’s a morning mare; and he’s dreaming he’s fighting with old Slegge again, and punching my pillow, thinking it’s his head. I only wish it had been as soft, and then I shouldn’t have had so much skin off my knuckles.—There! There it goes again! It must be the workpeople come to open a drain or something. They must be cross at having to get up so early, or else they wouldn’t be banging their tools down like that! Hi! Singhy!”“Cowardly brute!”“Singhy!”“Eh? What’s the matter? Time to get up? I haven’t heard the bell.”“There it goes again,” cried Glyn, as the jangling rattle rose to his ears once more.“Glyn, what’s that?”“Oh, what an old stupid it is! Here have I been shouting ever so long to make you get up and see. Go and open the window and look out.”“Heigh-ho-hum!” yawned Singh. “I was dreaming that old Slegge hit me in the face again.”“Yes, I know you were.”“Why, you couldn’t know I dreamt it.”“But I tell you I did know.”“How could you know, when I was dreaming and you weren’t?”“Why, you were shouting it at me, and pitching into my pillow, thinking it was old Slegge’s head.”“Get out! I wasn’t. I— Here, how is it I have got two pillows here? Why, you wretch, you must have thrown one at me to wake me!”There was a sharp rustling, an expiration of breath, and the soft head-rest was hurled back again, just as the jangling noise was repeated more loudly.“There! Hear that?” cried Glyn.“I am not deaf, stupid.”“Then jump up and go and see what it is.”“Shan’t! It’s quite dark yet, and I am as tired as can be.”“Well, only get up and see what that noise is, and then you can go to sleep again.”“Shan’t, I tell you. I am not your coolie. What lazy people you English are!”There was a fresh jangling from below, exciting Glyn’s curiosity almost to the highest pitch.“Look here, Singhy, if you don’t get up directly and see what that noise is, I’ll come and make you.”“You do if you dare!”Glyn threw the clothes back, sprang out of bed, and the next moment the coverings of his companion were stripped off on to the floor.“Oh, you—” snapped Singh. “I’ll pay you out for all this!”“Come on, then.”Glyn did not wait to see whether his companion did come on, but stepped to the window, pulled up the blind, and raised up the window to look out.“Here, Singh!” he cried, turning to look back. “Come here, quick!”“Shan’t! And if you don’t bring those clothes back I’ll—I’ll— Oh, I say, Glyn, don’t be an old stupid. Throw my things over me again and shut that window. Ugh! It is cold!”“Will you come here and look? Here’s the old elephant again.”“Gammon!” cried Singh, whose many years’ association with Glyn had made him almost as English in his expressions. “Think you are going to cheat me out of my morning’s snooze by such a cock-and-bull story as that?”Oddly enough at that moment there rang out from one of the neighbouring premises the shrill clarion of a bantam-cock.“Ha, ha!” laughed Glyn merrily. “It’s a cock and elephant!”“Don’t believe you.”But as the rattling noise was continued, Singh sat up in bed.“I say,” he continued, “what’s the good of talking such stuff?”“Stuff, eh? You come and see. Here’s that great elephant right in the middle of the playground.”“Tell you I don’t believe you, and I shan’t get up.”“Ugh! What an old heretic you are! Didn’t he get away last night and go no one knows where? Well, he’s here.”“I say, though, is he really?”Clinkitty, clank! clinkitty, clank!“Hear that?” cried Glyn. “Now you will believe. He’s got in here somehow, and he’s dragging that chain and the big iron peg all about the playground. Here, I know, Singhy,” continued Glyn in a high state of excitement, “he’s come after you.”“Rubbish!” shouted Singh; and, springing out of bed, he rushed to the window, where in the gradually broadening dawn, half-across the playground, looking grey and transparent in the morning mist, the huge bulk of the elephant loomed up and looked double its natural size.“There, then,” cried Glyn, “will you believe me now?”Singh uttered an exclamation aloud in Hindustani, and in an instant there was a shrill snort and a repetition of the clinking of the great chain, as the huge beast shuffled slowly across till it stood close up to the hedge which divided the garden from the playground; and there, muttering softly as if to itself, it began to sway its head from side to side, lifting up first one pillar-like leg and foot and then the other, to plant them back again in the same spot from which they had been raised.“Well, this is a pretty game,” continued Glyn. “Here, you had better say something to him, or shall I?”“What shall I say?” answered Singh.“Tell him to kneel down, or lie down and go to sleep before he comes through that hedge and begins walking all over the Doctor’s flower-beds.”Seeing the necessity for immediate action, Singh uttered a sharp, short order, and the elephant knelt at once.“Ah, that’s better,” cried Glyn.“What shall I do now?” asked Singh, rather excitedly.“Do? Why, you had better dress as quickly as you can, and go down to him.”“But it’s so early,” said Singh. “I haven’t finished my sleep.”“And you won’t either; and you had better look sharp before he rams that great head of his against the door and comes upstairs to fetch you.”“Bother the elephant!” cried Singh irritably, for this early waking from a comfortable sleep had soured his temper.“All right; bother him, then,” replied Glyn, who was wonderfully wakeful now; “but it seems to me that he’s going to bother us. I say, Singhy, the Doctor said he wouldn’t let Slegge keep that fox-terrier dog he bought a month ago.”“Well, I know; but what’s that got to do with the elephant coming here?”“Oh, I only meant that the Doctor won’t let you keep him as a pet,” said Glyn with a chuckle.“Such rubbish!” snapped out Singh in a rage, as he stood on one leg, thrust one foot through his trousers, and then raising the other he lost his balance somehow, got himself tangled up, and went down with a bang.“Oh, bother the old trousers!” he cried angrily, as he scrambled up. “Here, I don’t know what we are going to do.”“Don’t you? Well, I do. It’s plain enough that the great brute has been wandering about till he found his way here.”“But how did he get in?” cried Singh jumpily and with a good deal of catching of the breath, for in his haste he kept on getting into difficulties with his buttons and the holes through which they ought to have passed.“Well, I don’t know,” said Glyn; “but I should say he tramped along yonder under the wall till he came to where the hedge had been mended up, and then walked through.”“Well, suppose he did,” said Singh angrily. “What difference does that make? You see what a mess we are in. You are always pretending to give me good advice; now one is in regular trouble you don’t say a word.”“Yes, I did,” cried Glyn, who was also hastily dressing. “Not give you advice! Why, didn’t I just now tell you I was quite sure the Doctor would not let you keep him for a pet?”“Look here,” snarled Singh, “you’ll make me angry directly,” and he glanced viciously at his water-jug.“Can’t,” cried Glyn. “You’re so cross now I couldn’t make you any worse. But, I say, what are you going to do?”“I don’t know,” replied Singh. “Take it home, I suppose. I came here to England to be educated and made into an English gentleman, not to be turned into a low-caste mahout.”“Oh, what’s the good of being so waxy? Look at the fun of the thing! Here, I know; let’s finish dressing, and then send old Wrench to tell Mr Ramball that we have found his elephant, or that he has found us.”“But he won’t be up till it’s time to ring the six o’clock bell. What time is it now?”“I don’t know. About half-past one, I should think,” cried Glyn, laughing merrily.“There you go again! You know it must be much later than that. Yet you will keep on saying things to make me wild. Are you going to help me get out of this dreadful scrape?”“It isn’t your scrape. It’s only an accident. You talked to the beast in the old language, and it came after you again, just like a dog after its own master.”“Look here,” said Singh, “do you know where Wrench sleeps?”“Yes.”“Where?” cried Singh eagerly.“In his bed.”“Oh!” roared Singh passionately; and hearing his loud voice the elephant grunted and began to rise slowly.“There, I knew you would do it,” cried Glyn, who was bubbling over with fun. “He’s coming upstairs.”“Oh!” cried Singh again, with an ejaculation of dismay, as he hurried to the window, thrust out his head, and shouted something that sounded like “Gangarroo rubble dubble.”But whatever it meant, it stopped the elephant from crashing through a piece of palisading, and made it kneel again with its head over a flowerbed, and begin picking all the blossoms within its reach.“Oh dear, just look at him!” cried Singh piteously. “And here you are laughing as if it were the best fun you have ever seen!”“Well, so it is,” cried Glyn—“a regular game!”“Game! Why, I feel as if I could run away to guardian at the hotel, and never show my face here again.”“Here, don’t be such a jolly old stupid, makingKunchinjingasout of pimples. Here, I know what I’ll do. Of course we couldn’t get to old Wrench’s place. He sleeps in a turn-up bed in his pantry, I believe. I’d soon turn him down, if I could,” cried Glyn, as he poured the contents of his jug into the basin.“But you had an idea,” said Singh.Bubble, bubble, bubble, bubble, came from the basin as the boy thrust in his face.Singh uttered a sound like a snarl.“Wait till I get my towel,” gasped Glyn as he raised his face for a moment, and directly after—sounding half-smothered in huckaback, and coming in spasmodic jerks—the boy panted out, “I guess it’s about four o’clock now. I’ll—I’ll go down and make—believe it’s six, and ring the big bell. That’ll make old Wrench come tumbling out in a fright.”“Ah, to be sure; now you are talking sense. Capital! Make haste.”“Well, I am making haste.”“Oh, Glyn, old chap,” cried Singh piteously, “don’t, pray don’t, begin making fun of it all again. I feel just as if I am to blame for all the mischief that great beast has done and is going to do. He’ll obey me, and as soon as I am dressed I am going down to talk to him and try and keep him quiet while you rouse up Wrench.”“Rouse up Wrench!” said Glyn laughing. “Why, it’ll rouse up the whole school. Only that I know that the fellows won’t be in any hurry to get up, I should be afraid that they would come scrambling out into the playground, and we should have the great monster picking the little ones up one at a time and taking them like pills.”“Oh, there you go again,” cried Singh piteously.“Oh, all right, old chap. That was a slip. But I say, I suppose I’d better not stop to take my hair out of the curl-papers.”“Glyn!”“There, all right. Dry now. Must put a comb through my hair. I look so fierce the elephant would take me for an enemy. There we are,” he continued, talking away as he busied himself. “Is the parting straight? There, come along. Well, you are a fellow! I am ready first.”They hurried down the stairs and made for the door, to find to their great dismay that it was locked, bolted, and chained, and so dark at the end of the passage that it was hard work to find the fastenings; and while Glyn was fumbling about in utter ignorance of how the chain was secured there came, faintly heard, from outside a shrill trumpeting sound.“Oh,” gasped Singh, “he has missed us, and thinks we are gone.”“Run up to the window again and order him to lie down,” cried Glyn, speaking earnestly now. “I’ll get the door open somehow, or a window, and go out to him and make-believe to mount, till you come down. That’ll keep him quiet.”“Yes, yes,” panted Singh; “only do make haste.”The boy hurried back along the passage, and in the darkness kicked against a mat and went down with a bang.“Don’t stop to pick up the pieces,” cried Glyn, and there was a sound came out of the darkness as if Singh had snapped his teeth together.Then for nearly five minutes Glyn went on fumbling over the fastenings, and succeeded at last in throwing open the door, to see a few golden fleck-like clouds softly bright high overhead, and away to his right the great animal that had roused him from his peaceful sleep.He went straight to it without hesitation, and as he got close up, the huge beast began to mutter and grumble, and raised its trunk, while the boy felt it creep round his waist like a serpent and hold him tightly.“What’s he going to do next?” thought Glyn. “He must know I’m not Singh. Why doesn’t he come? Hasn’t hurt himself, has he?”Just then Singh appeared at their bedroom window, and called to the intruder softly, with the result that the trunk was uncurled, raised in the air, and used like a trumpet, while a shuffling movement suggested that the animal was about to rise.“Kneel!” cried Singh, and the animal crouched once more.“Now you get on his neck, and sit there till I come down.”“It’s all very well,” grumbled Glyn; “but I don’t much like the job while you are away.”All the same, the boy did not hesitate, but took hold of the crouching beast’s ear, planted the edge of his shoe in one of the wrinkles of the trunk, and climbed into the mahout’s place, his steed raising and lowering its ears and muttering and grumbling impatiently as if waiting to be told to rise.Meanwhile Singh had disappeared from the window, and after what seemed a very long time made his appearance through the door.“Oh, what a while you have been!” cried Glyn. “Now then, you had better come here and sit on him to hold him down while I go and ring the bell. Here, I say, though, it won’t make him think breakfast’s ready, will it, and send him scrambling off after buns?”“No, no, no! Nonsense!” cried Singh.“Oh, well, if you don’t mind, I don’t, because I shall be over there. But, all the same, I shouldn’t like to see him kick up behind and throw you over his head.”Singh uttered an impatient ejaculation, and began to climb on to the animal’s neck.“No, no,” cried Glyn. “I’m going to get off now.”“No; you must wait till I am up there behind you, and then as you get down I’ll slide into your place.”“But you will have to tell him to lift up his ears, for he’s nipping my legs hard, and they feel as if they were going to hold me down.”“It will be all right,” said Singh impatiently, and throwing his right leg over, he came down upon the elephant’s neck; while before the boys could grasp what was about to happen, the animal rose and began to turn round, slinging the massive iron peg over the palisade; and then, as he began to move off and the chain tightened, he drew with him eight or ten feet of the ornamental woodwork.“Oh, what will the Doctor say?” cried Singh piteously.“That he’ll stop your pocket-allowance to pay for it. Here, I say, old chap, do, do something to steer him.”“But I haven’t got a—”“Here, try a pin,” cried Glyn, making-believe to pull one out of the bottom corner of his waistcoat.“But that won’t go through his skin.”“No, I suppose not. He’ll think you are tickling him. Here, shall I try my knife?”“No, no, no! It will make him mad.”“But we must do something,” cried Glyn, who couldn’t sit still for laughing. “Can’t you turn his head? We are mowing and harrowing all these flower-beds with this wood-stack he’s dragging at his heels. Ah, that’s better!” continued Glyn, as, finding the impediment rather unpleasant, the animal turned off at right angles and reached out with its trunk to remove the obstacles attached to its leg.“Why, we are anchored! Oh, now he’s off again. Why, where’s he going?”“I think he’s going to make for the hedge where he came through first, in the cricket-field.”“But we couldn’t get through there with all this garden-fence. It would catch in the hedge, and we should be dragging that too all through the town.”“Oh, I don’t know,” cried Singh.“Let’s scramble down and try to stop him. If you take hold of one leg I’ll hang on by his tail if I can reach it.—Ah, that’s better!”For the elephant suddenly came to a standstill about a third of the way across the playground.“Here, he’s stopping for something. I wish we were near a baker’s shop.”But the elephant had not stopped for nothing but only to balance itself upon three legs while it kicked out with the fourth, making a loud crashing and jangling noise, which was repeated till the length of wooden palisade was broken into splinters. But the chain and picket-peg were as firmly attached as ever, and were dragged steadily across the remaining portion of the playground right for the hedge, which now stood before the boys, displaying not only the demolished reparations, but a good-sized gap as well.It seemed as if their steed meant to pass straight through, and he did so. The great iron peg got across a couple of tough old stumps of the hawthorn bushes and drew him up short, but only for a few moments; the huge beast putting forth its strength and dragging them out by the roots, after which it turned off to the left, to go on straight through the still sleeping town, making its way in the calmest manner for the show-field at the back of the principal hotel. Here it stopped at last close to the loosened earth from which it had originally wrenched the picket; and then, raising its trunk, blew such a blast that it produced a chaotic burst of sounds from the quadrangle of cages and dens, each creature after its kind joining in the chorus, and rousing and bringing every keeper and labourer attached to the menagerie upon the scene, the last to arrive, eager and smiling, but before anything was done, being the proprietor himself, who came up cheering and waving hat and handkerchief in the air.“Think of that now!” he cried. “I say, young gentlemen, it all points to it, you see, and you needn’t tell me; the old Rajah saw what was right. He only went to fetch you, and you’ve come to stay.”

“Singh!”

There was no answer. “Singh! Oh, what a sleepy old mongoose it is! Singhy! What’s that row out in the playground?”

It was early dawn. The first faint rays of day were peering in on both sides of the drawn blind, the speaker was Glyn, and the words were uttered in consequence of a peculiar clanking noise heard out in the play-yard.

Now, the most common-sense way of finding out the meaning of the noise which had awakened the boy from a deep sleep would have been to jump out of bed, draw up the blind, and throw up the window, letting in the fresh, cool morning air, as the head was thrust out and eyes brought to bear upon the dimly seen shadowy space below. But Glyn felt very drowsy, exceedingly comfortable, and not in the slightest degree disposed to stir. Consequently he called across the little room to the other bed, and, as before said, there was no reply.

“Oh, you are a sleepy one!” muttered the boy, and reaching up his hands he turned them into a catapult, seizing the pillow by both ends, and drawing it upwards from beneath his head, when without rising he hurled it across at Singh, striking him with a pretty good whop.

“Great cowardly bully; that’s what you are,” muttered the boy. “Oh, I wish I was ten times as strong! Take that, and that, and that!”

The commands were accompanied by a heavy panting, and the sound of blows.

“Why, what’s he doing?” said Glyn to himself, growing more wakeful, and beginning to chuckle as he grasped the situation. “Oh, what a game!” he said softly. “He’s lying on his back, and got the nightmare, only it’s a morning mare; and he’s dreaming he’s fighting with old Slegge again, and punching my pillow, thinking it’s his head. I only wish it had been as soft, and then I shouldn’t have had so much skin off my knuckles.—There! There it goes again! It must be the workpeople come to open a drain or something. They must be cross at having to get up so early, or else they wouldn’t be banging their tools down like that! Hi! Singhy!”

“Cowardly brute!”

“Singhy!”

“Eh? What’s the matter? Time to get up? I haven’t heard the bell.”

“There it goes again,” cried Glyn, as the jangling rattle rose to his ears once more.

“Glyn, what’s that?”

“Oh, what an old stupid it is! Here have I been shouting ever so long to make you get up and see. Go and open the window and look out.”

“Heigh-ho-hum!” yawned Singh. “I was dreaming that old Slegge hit me in the face again.”

“Yes, I know you were.”

“Why, you couldn’t know I dreamt it.”

“But I tell you I did know.”

“How could you know, when I was dreaming and you weren’t?”

“Why, you were shouting it at me, and pitching into my pillow, thinking it was old Slegge’s head.”

“Get out! I wasn’t. I— Here, how is it I have got two pillows here? Why, you wretch, you must have thrown one at me to wake me!”

There was a sharp rustling, an expiration of breath, and the soft head-rest was hurled back again, just as the jangling noise was repeated more loudly.

“There! Hear that?” cried Glyn.

“I am not deaf, stupid.”

“Then jump up and go and see what it is.”

“Shan’t! It’s quite dark yet, and I am as tired as can be.”

“Well, only get up and see what that noise is, and then you can go to sleep again.”

“Shan’t, I tell you. I am not your coolie. What lazy people you English are!”

There was a fresh jangling from below, exciting Glyn’s curiosity almost to the highest pitch.

“Look here, Singhy, if you don’t get up directly and see what that noise is, I’ll come and make you.”

“You do if you dare!”

Glyn threw the clothes back, sprang out of bed, and the next moment the coverings of his companion were stripped off on to the floor.

“Oh, you—” snapped Singh. “I’ll pay you out for all this!”

“Come on, then.”

Glyn did not wait to see whether his companion did come on, but stepped to the window, pulled up the blind, and raised up the window to look out.

“Here, Singh!” he cried, turning to look back. “Come here, quick!”

“Shan’t! And if you don’t bring those clothes back I’ll—I’ll— Oh, I say, Glyn, don’t be an old stupid. Throw my things over me again and shut that window. Ugh! It is cold!”

“Will you come here and look? Here’s the old elephant again.”

“Gammon!” cried Singh, whose many years’ association with Glyn had made him almost as English in his expressions. “Think you are going to cheat me out of my morning’s snooze by such a cock-and-bull story as that?”

Oddly enough at that moment there rang out from one of the neighbouring premises the shrill clarion of a bantam-cock.

“Ha, ha!” laughed Glyn merrily. “It’s a cock and elephant!”

“Don’t believe you.”

But as the rattling noise was continued, Singh sat up in bed.

“I say,” he continued, “what’s the good of talking such stuff?”

“Stuff, eh? You come and see. Here’s that great elephant right in the middle of the playground.”

“Tell you I don’t believe you, and I shan’t get up.”

“Ugh! What an old heretic you are! Didn’t he get away last night and go no one knows where? Well, he’s here.”

“I say, though, is he really?”

Clinkitty, clank! clinkitty, clank!

“Hear that?” cried Glyn. “Now you will believe. He’s got in here somehow, and he’s dragging that chain and the big iron peg all about the playground. Here, I know, Singhy,” continued Glyn in a high state of excitement, “he’s come after you.”

“Rubbish!” shouted Singh; and, springing out of bed, he rushed to the window, where in the gradually broadening dawn, half-across the playground, looking grey and transparent in the morning mist, the huge bulk of the elephant loomed up and looked double its natural size.

“There, then,” cried Glyn, “will you believe me now?”

Singh uttered an exclamation aloud in Hindustani, and in an instant there was a shrill snort and a repetition of the clinking of the great chain, as the huge beast shuffled slowly across till it stood close up to the hedge which divided the garden from the playground; and there, muttering softly as if to itself, it began to sway its head from side to side, lifting up first one pillar-like leg and foot and then the other, to plant them back again in the same spot from which they had been raised.

“Well, this is a pretty game,” continued Glyn. “Here, you had better say something to him, or shall I?”

“What shall I say?” answered Singh.

“Tell him to kneel down, or lie down and go to sleep before he comes through that hedge and begins walking all over the Doctor’s flower-beds.”

Seeing the necessity for immediate action, Singh uttered a sharp, short order, and the elephant knelt at once.

“Ah, that’s better,” cried Glyn.

“What shall I do now?” asked Singh, rather excitedly.

“Do? Why, you had better dress as quickly as you can, and go down to him.”

“But it’s so early,” said Singh. “I haven’t finished my sleep.”

“And you won’t either; and you had better look sharp before he rams that great head of his against the door and comes upstairs to fetch you.”

“Bother the elephant!” cried Singh irritably, for this early waking from a comfortable sleep had soured his temper.

“All right; bother him, then,” replied Glyn, who was wonderfully wakeful now; “but it seems to me that he’s going to bother us. I say, Singhy, the Doctor said he wouldn’t let Slegge keep that fox-terrier dog he bought a month ago.”

“Well, I know; but what’s that got to do with the elephant coming here?”

“Oh, I only meant that the Doctor won’t let you keep him as a pet,” said Glyn with a chuckle.

“Such rubbish!” snapped out Singh in a rage, as he stood on one leg, thrust one foot through his trousers, and then raising the other he lost his balance somehow, got himself tangled up, and went down with a bang.

“Oh, bother the old trousers!” he cried angrily, as he scrambled up. “Here, I don’t know what we are going to do.”

“Don’t you? Well, I do. It’s plain enough that the great brute has been wandering about till he found his way here.”

“But how did he get in?” cried Singh jumpily and with a good deal of catching of the breath, for in his haste he kept on getting into difficulties with his buttons and the holes through which they ought to have passed.

“Well, I don’t know,” said Glyn; “but I should say he tramped along yonder under the wall till he came to where the hedge had been mended up, and then walked through.”

“Well, suppose he did,” said Singh angrily. “What difference does that make? You see what a mess we are in. You are always pretending to give me good advice; now one is in regular trouble you don’t say a word.”

“Yes, I did,” cried Glyn, who was also hastily dressing. “Not give you advice! Why, didn’t I just now tell you I was quite sure the Doctor would not let you keep him for a pet?”

“Look here,” snarled Singh, “you’ll make me angry directly,” and he glanced viciously at his water-jug.

“Can’t,” cried Glyn. “You’re so cross now I couldn’t make you any worse. But, I say, what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know,” replied Singh. “Take it home, I suppose. I came here to England to be educated and made into an English gentleman, not to be turned into a low-caste mahout.”

“Oh, what’s the good of being so waxy? Look at the fun of the thing! Here, I know; let’s finish dressing, and then send old Wrench to tell Mr Ramball that we have found his elephant, or that he has found us.”

“But he won’t be up till it’s time to ring the six o’clock bell. What time is it now?”

“I don’t know. About half-past one, I should think,” cried Glyn, laughing merrily.

“There you go again! You know it must be much later than that. Yet you will keep on saying things to make me wild. Are you going to help me get out of this dreadful scrape?”

“It isn’t your scrape. It’s only an accident. You talked to the beast in the old language, and it came after you again, just like a dog after its own master.”

“Look here,” said Singh, “do you know where Wrench sleeps?”

“Yes.”

“Where?” cried Singh eagerly.

“In his bed.”

“Oh!” roared Singh passionately; and hearing his loud voice the elephant grunted and began to rise slowly.

“There, I knew you would do it,” cried Glyn, who was bubbling over with fun. “He’s coming upstairs.”

“Oh!” cried Singh again, with an ejaculation of dismay, as he hurried to the window, thrust out his head, and shouted something that sounded like “Gangarroo rubble dubble.”

But whatever it meant, it stopped the elephant from crashing through a piece of palisading, and made it kneel again with its head over a flowerbed, and begin picking all the blossoms within its reach.

“Oh dear, just look at him!” cried Singh piteously. “And here you are laughing as if it were the best fun you have ever seen!”

“Well, so it is,” cried Glyn—“a regular game!”

“Game! Why, I feel as if I could run away to guardian at the hotel, and never show my face here again.”

“Here, don’t be such a jolly old stupid, makingKunchinjingasout of pimples. Here, I know what I’ll do. Of course we couldn’t get to old Wrench’s place. He sleeps in a turn-up bed in his pantry, I believe. I’d soon turn him down, if I could,” cried Glyn, as he poured the contents of his jug into the basin.

“But you had an idea,” said Singh.

Bubble, bubble, bubble, bubble, came from the basin as the boy thrust in his face.

Singh uttered a sound like a snarl.

“Wait till I get my towel,” gasped Glyn as he raised his face for a moment, and directly after—sounding half-smothered in huckaback, and coming in spasmodic jerks—the boy panted out, “I guess it’s about four o’clock now. I’ll—I’ll go down and make—believe it’s six, and ring the big bell. That’ll make old Wrench come tumbling out in a fright.”

“Ah, to be sure; now you are talking sense. Capital! Make haste.”

“Well, I am making haste.”

“Oh, Glyn, old chap,” cried Singh piteously, “don’t, pray don’t, begin making fun of it all again. I feel just as if I am to blame for all the mischief that great beast has done and is going to do. He’ll obey me, and as soon as I am dressed I am going down to talk to him and try and keep him quiet while you rouse up Wrench.”

“Rouse up Wrench!” said Glyn laughing. “Why, it’ll rouse up the whole school. Only that I know that the fellows won’t be in any hurry to get up, I should be afraid that they would come scrambling out into the playground, and we should have the great monster picking the little ones up one at a time and taking them like pills.”

“Oh, there you go again,” cried Singh piteously.

“Oh, all right, old chap. That was a slip. But I say, I suppose I’d better not stop to take my hair out of the curl-papers.”

“Glyn!”

“There, all right. Dry now. Must put a comb through my hair. I look so fierce the elephant would take me for an enemy. There we are,” he continued, talking away as he busied himself. “Is the parting straight? There, come along. Well, you are a fellow! I am ready first.”

They hurried down the stairs and made for the door, to find to their great dismay that it was locked, bolted, and chained, and so dark at the end of the passage that it was hard work to find the fastenings; and while Glyn was fumbling about in utter ignorance of how the chain was secured there came, faintly heard, from outside a shrill trumpeting sound.

“Oh,” gasped Singh, “he has missed us, and thinks we are gone.”

“Run up to the window again and order him to lie down,” cried Glyn, speaking earnestly now. “I’ll get the door open somehow, or a window, and go out to him and make-believe to mount, till you come down. That’ll keep him quiet.”

“Yes, yes,” panted Singh; “only do make haste.”

The boy hurried back along the passage, and in the darkness kicked against a mat and went down with a bang.

“Don’t stop to pick up the pieces,” cried Glyn, and there was a sound came out of the darkness as if Singh had snapped his teeth together.

Then for nearly five minutes Glyn went on fumbling over the fastenings, and succeeded at last in throwing open the door, to see a few golden fleck-like clouds softly bright high overhead, and away to his right the great animal that had roused him from his peaceful sleep.

He went straight to it without hesitation, and as he got close up, the huge beast began to mutter and grumble, and raised its trunk, while the boy felt it creep round his waist like a serpent and hold him tightly.

“What’s he going to do next?” thought Glyn. “He must know I’m not Singh. Why doesn’t he come? Hasn’t hurt himself, has he?”

Just then Singh appeared at their bedroom window, and called to the intruder softly, with the result that the trunk was uncurled, raised in the air, and used like a trumpet, while a shuffling movement suggested that the animal was about to rise.

“Kneel!” cried Singh, and the animal crouched once more.

“Now you get on his neck, and sit there till I come down.”

“It’s all very well,” grumbled Glyn; “but I don’t much like the job while you are away.”

All the same, the boy did not hesitate, but took hold of the crouching beast’s ear, planted the edge of his shoe in one of the wrinkles of the trunk, and climbed into the mahout’s place, his steed raising and lowering its ears and muttering and grumbling impatiently as if waiting to be told to rise.

Meanwhile Singh had disappeared from the window, and after what seemed a very long time made his appearance through the door.

“Oh, what a while you have been!” cried Glyn. “Now then, you had better come here and sit on him to hold him down while I go and ring the bell. Here, I say, though, it won’t make him think breakfast’s ready, will it, and send him scrambling off after buns?”

“No, no, no! Nonsense!” cried Singh.

“Oh, well, if you don’t mind, I don’t, because I shall be over there. But, all the same, I shouldn’t like to see him kick up behind and throw you over his head.”

Singh uttered an impatient ejaculation, and began to climb on to the animal’s neck.

“No, no,” cried Glyn. “I’m going to get off now.”

“No; you must wait till I am up there behind you, and then as you get down I’ll slide into your place.”

“But you will have to tell him to lift up his ears, for he’s nipping my legs hard, and they feel as if they were going to hold me down.”

“It will be all right,” said Singh impatiently, and throwing his right leg over, he came down upon the elephant’s neck; while before the boys could grasp what was about to happen, the animal rose and began to turn round, slinging the massive iron peg over the palisade; and then, as he began to move off and the chain tightened, he drew with him eight or ten feet of the ornamental woodwork.

“Oh, what will the Doctor say?” cried Singh piteously.

“That he’ll stop your pocket-allowance to pay for it. Here, I say, old chap, do, do something to steer him.”

“But I haven’t got a—”

“Here, try a pin,” cried Glyn, making-believe to pull one out of the bottom corner of his waistcoat.

“But that won’t go through his skin.”

“No, I suppose not. He’ll think you are tickling him. Here, shall I try my knife?”

“No, no, no! It will make him mad.”

“But we must do something,” cried Glyn, who couldn’t sit still for laughing. “Can’t you turn his head? We are mowing and harrowing all these flower-beds with this wood-stack he’s dragging at his heels. Ah, that’s better!” continued Glyn, as, finding the impediment rather unpleasant, the animal turned off at right angles and reached out with its trunk to remove the obstacles attached to its leg.

“Why, we are anchored! Oh, now he’s off again. Why, where’s he going?”

“I think he’s going to make for the hedge where he came through first, in the cricket-field.”

“But we couldn’t get through there with all this garden-fence. It would catch in the hedge, and we should be dragging that too all through the town.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” cried Singh.

“Let’s scramble down and try to stop him. If you take hold of one leg I’ll hang on by his tail if I can reach it.—Ah, that’s better!”

For the elephant suddenly came to a standstill about a third of the way across the playground.

“Here, he’s stopping for something. I wish we were near a baker’s shop.”

But the elephant had not stopped for nothing but only to balance itself upon three legs while it kicked out with the fourth, making a loud crashing and jangling noise, which was repeated till the length of wooden palisade was broken into splinters. But the chain and picket-peg were as firmly attached as ever, and were dragged steadily across the remaining portion of the playground right for the hedge, which now stood before the boys, displaying not only the demolished reparations, but a good-sized gap as well.

It seemed as if their steed meant to pass straight through, and he did so. The great iron peg got across a couple of tough old stumps of the hawthorn bushes and drew him up short, but only for a few moments; the huge beast putting forth its strength and dragging them out by the roots, after which it turned off to the left, to go on straight through the still sleeping town, making its way in the calmest manner for the show-field at the back of the principal hotel. Here it stopped at last close to the loosened earth from which it had originally wrenched the picket; and then, raising its trunk, blew such a blast that it produced a chaotic burst of sounds from the quadrangle of cages and dens, each creature after its kind joining in the chorus, and rousing and bringing every keeper and labourer attached to the menagerie upon the scene, the last to arrive, eager and smiling, but before anything was done, being the proprietor himself, who came up cheering and waving hat and handkerchief in the air.

“Think of that now!” he cried. “I say, young gentlemen, it all points to it, you see, and you needn’t tell me; the old Rajah saw what was right. He only went to fetch you, and you’ve come to stay.”

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