It was delicious torture to Frank to be in the same place again with Muriel, to see her from the parade ground or the Mess verandah playing in the garden with the children, to meet her every day and talk to her and yet be obliged to school his lips and keep them from uttering the words that trembled on them.

A few nights after the Durbar he dined with Mrs. Dermot and Muriel and was sitting on the verandah of the Political Officer’s house with them after dinner.  He was wearing white mess uniform.  The evening was warm and very still, and whenever the conversation died away, no sound save the monotonous note of the nightjars or the sudden cry of a barking-deer, broke the silence since the echoes of the “Lights Out” bugle call had died away among the hills.

Wargrave looked at his watch.

“It’s past eleven o’clock,” he said.  “I’d no idea it was so late.  I ought to get up and say goodnight; but I’m so comfortable here, Mrs. Dermot.”

His hostess smiled lazily at him but made no reply.  Again a peaceful hush fell on them.

With startling suddenness it was broken.  From the Fort four hundred yards away a rifle-shot rang out, rending the silence of the night and reverberating among the hills around.  Wargrave sprang to his feet as shouts followed and a bugle shrilled out the soul-gripping “Alarm,” the call that sends a thrill through every soldier’s frame.  For always it tells of disaster.  Heard thus at night in barracks swift following on a shot it spoke of crime, of murder, the black murder of a comrade.

The two women had risen anxiously.

“What is it?  Oh, what is it?” they asked.

The subaltern spoke lightly to re-assure them.

“Nothing much, I expect.  Some man on guard fooling with his rifle let it off by accident,” he said quietly.  “Excuse me.  I’d better stroll across to the Fort and see.”

But Mrs. Dermot stopped him.

“Wait a moment please, Mr. Wargrave,” she said, running into the house.  She returned immediately with her husband’s big automatic pistol and handed it to him.  In her left hand she held a smaller one.  “Take this with you.  It’s loaded,” she said.

Frank thanked her, said goodnight to both calmly, and walked down the garden path; but the anxious women heard him running swiftly across the parade ground.

“What is it, Noreen?  What does it mean?” asked the girl nervously.

“A sepoy running amuck, I’m afraid,” replied her friend.  “He’s shot someone——.”

She swung round, pistol raised.

“Kohn hai? (Who’s that?)” she called out.

A man had come noiselessly on to the shadowed end of the verandah.

“It is I, mem-sahib,” answered Sher Afzul, her Punjaubi Mahommedan butler.  He had been in her service for five years and was devoted to her and hers.  He was carrying a rifle, for his master at his request had long ago given him arms to protect his mem-sahib.  Before her marriage he had once fought almost to the death to defend her when her brother’s bungalow had been attacked by rebels during a rising.