“My father’s wife is old and harsh with years,
      And drudge of all my father’s house am I.
    My bread is sorrow and my drink is tears,
      Come back to me, Beloved, or I die! 
      Come back to me, Beloved, or I die!”

And the singer looked up into the eager eyes bent on her and sighed a little as she struck the final chords.  Out on the verandah Raymond frowned as he watched them and wondered if this woman was to come between them and take his friend from him.  Just then the bare-footed servants entered the room, carrying silver trays on which stood the whiskies and sodas that are the stirrup-cups, the hints to guests that the time of departure has come, of dinner-parties in India.

As the two subalterns drove home in Raymond’s trap through the hot Indian night under a moon shining with a brilliance that England never knows, Wargrave hummed “The Love Song of Har Dyal.”

Suddenly he said: 

“She’s wonderful, Ray, isn’t she?  Fancy such a glorious woman buried in this hole and married to a dry old stick like the Resident!  Doesn’t it seem a shame?”

The adjutant mumbled an incoherent reply behind his lighted cheroot.

Arrived in their bungalow they undressed in their rooms and in pyjamas and slippers came out into the compound, where on either side of a table on which was a lighted lamp stood their bedsteads, the mattress of each covered with a thin strip of soft China matting.  For in the hot weather in many parts of India this must be used to lie upon instead of a linen sheet, which would become saturated with perspiration.  Looking carefully at the ground over which they passed for fear of snakes they reached and lay down on their beds, over each of which a punkah was suspended from a cross-beam supported by two upright posts sunk in the ground.  One rope moved both punkahs, and the motive power was supplied by a coolie who, salaaming to the sahibs and seating himself on the ground, picked up the end of the rope and began to pull.  Raymond put out the lamp.

Wargrave stared up at the moon for a while.  Then he said: 

“I say, Ray; didn’t Mrs. Norton look lovely to-night?  Didn’t that dress suit her awfully well?”

“Oh, go to sleep, old man.  We’ve got to get up in a few hours for this confoundedly early parade.  Goodnight,” growled the adjutant, turning on his side and closing his eyes.

But he listened for some time to his friend humming “The Love Song of Har Dyal” again! and not until Frank was silent did he doze off.  An hour later he woke up suddenly, bathed in perspiration and devoured by mosquitoes; for the punkahs were still—­the coolie had gone to sleep.  He called to the man and aroused him, then before shutting his eyes again he looked at his companion.  The moon shone full on Wargrave’s face.  He was sleeping peacefully and smiling.  Raymond stared at him for a few minutes.  Then he muttered inconsequently: