It was some time before seven strong men could pinion him and carry him on a stretcher to the Guard-room, and, of those seven strong men, only Trooper Bear bore no mark of serious damage. (Trooper Bear had struck two non-commissioned officers with great violence, in his misdirected zeal, and one Commissioned Officer—­though only playfully and for the satisfaction of being able to say that he had done so.) That night, half dead, wholly mad, bruised and bleeding, Damocles de Warrenne lay in the dark cell awaiting trial on a charge of assaulting an Officer, striking his superior officers, resisting the Guard, deserting his sentry-post, and being drunk and disorderly.

* * * * *

“What’ll he get, d’you think?” sadly asked Trooper Goate of Trooper Hawker.

“Two stretch ‘ard laiber and discharged from the Army wiv’ iggernerminny,” groaned Trooper Hawker.  “Lucky fer ’im floggin’s erbolished in the British Army.”

* * * * *

When the mortuary door was unlocked next morning a little force was required to open it, some obstacle apparently retarding its inward movement.  The obstacle proved to be the body, now certainly the dead body, of Trooper Priddell who had died with his fingers thrust under the said door.[26]

PART III.

THE SAVING OF A SOUL

CHAPTER XII.

VULTURES AND LUCK—­GOOD AND BAD.

To the strongest and sanest mind there is something a small trifle disturbing, perhaps, in riding silently hour after hour on a soft-footed camel over soft sand in a silent empty land through the moonlit silent night, beside an overland-telegraph wire on every individual post of which sits a huge vulture!...  Just as the sun set, a fiery red ball, behind the distant mountains, Damocles de Warrenne, gentleman-at-large, had caught sight of what he had sought in the desert for some days, the said overland telegraph, and thereby saved himself from the highly unpleasant death that follows prolonged deprivation of water.  He had also saved his camel from a little earlier death, inasmuch as he had decided to probe for the faithful creature’s jugular vein and carotid artery during the torturing heats of the morrow and prolong his life at its expense. (Had he not promised Lucille to do his best for himself?)

The overland telegraph pointed absolutely straight to the border city of Kot Ghazi and, better still, to a river-bed which would contain pools of water, thirty miles this side of it, at a spot a few miles from which stood a lost lone dak-bungalow on Indian soil—­a dak-bungalow whereat would be waiting a shikarri retainer, and such things as tea, fuel, potted foods, possibly fresh meat, and luxury of luxuries, a hot bath....

And, with a sigh of relief, he had wheeled his camel under the telegraph wires after a glance at the stars and brief calculation as to whether he should turn to left or right. (He did not want to proceed until he collapsed under the realization that he was making for the troubled land of Persia.)