Marvellous was the interior of the bungalow with its countless rooms and mountainous stair-cases (on the wall of one of which hung the Sword which he had never seen but instantly recognized) and its army of white servants headed by the white butler (so like the Chaplain of Bimariabad in grave respectability and solemn pompousness) and its extraordinary white “ayahs” or maids, and silver-haired Mrs. Pont, called the “house-keeper”.  Was she a pukka Mem-Sahib or a nowker[13] or what?  And how did she “keep” the house?

A wonderful place—­but far and away the most thrilling and delightful of its wonders was the little white girl, Lucille—­Damocles’ first experience of the charming genus.

The boy never forgot his first meeting with Lucille.

On his arrival at Monksmead he had been “vetted,” as he expressed it, by the Burra-Sahib, the General; and then taken to an attractive place called “the school-room” and there had found Lucille....

“Hullo!  Boy,” had been her greeting.  “What’s your name?” He had attentively scrutinized a small white-clad, blue-sashed maiden, with curling chestnut hair, well-opened hazel eyes, decided chin, Greek mouth and aristocratic cheek-bones.  A maiden with a look of blood and breed about her. (He did not sum her up in these terms at the time.)

“Can you ride, Boy?”

“A bit.”

“Can you fight?”

“A bit.”

“Can you swim?”

“Not well.”

“I can—­ever so farther.  D’you know French and German?”

“Not a word.”

“Play the piano?”

“Never heard of it.  D’you play it with cards or dice?”

“Lucky dog!  It’s music.  I have to practise an hour a day.”

“What for?”

“Nothing ... it’s lessons.  Beastly.  How old are you?”

“Seven—­er—­nearly.”

“So’m I—­nearly.  I’ve got to be six first though.  I shall have a birthday next week.  A big one.  Have you brought any ellyfunts from India?”

“I’ve never seen a nellyfunt—­only in pictures.”

A shudder shook the boy’s sturdy frame.

“Why do you go like that?  Feel sick?”

“No.  I don’t know.  I seemed to remember something—­in a book.  I dream about it.  There’s a nasty blue room with a mud floor.  And Something.  Beastly.  Makes you yell out and you can’t.  You can’t run away either.  But the Sword dream is lovely.”

Lucille appeared puzzled and put this incoherence aside.

“What a baby never to see ellyfunts!  I’ve seen lots.  Hundreds.  Zoo.  Circuses.  Persessions.  Camels, too.”

“Oh, I used to ride a camel every day.  There was one in the compound with his oont-wallah,[14] Abdul Ghaffr; and Khodadad Khan used to beat the oont-wallah on cold mornings to warm himself.”

“What’s an oont-wallah?”

“Don’t you know?  Why, he’s just the oont-wallah, of course.  Who’d graze the camel or load it up if there wasn’t one?”