“I think not, papa.”

“Of course not, of course not; I just told you that that is the way with all foolish girls like you.”

The old gentleman had assumed a stern earnestness, and he added:  “I tell you he will never show himself here!  I know what I’m talking about.”

“But he is here, papa; let me introduce you to Jack Everson, a physician like yourself.”

All this time the smiling young man was standing directly behind the old doctor, who was lazily reclining in a hammock on the shaded lawn, smoking a cheroot, while his daughter sat on a camp stool, with one hand resting on the edge of the hammock, so as to permit her gently to sway it back and forth.  As she spoke the tall, muscular American walked forward and extended his hand.

“Doctor, I am glad to make your acquaintance,” he said, in his cheery way.  The astonished physician came to an upright position like the clicking of the blade of a jackknife, and meeting the salutation, exclaimed: 

“Well, I’ll be hanged!  I never knew a girl so full of nonsense and tricks as Mary.  You are welcome, doctor, to my house; let me have a look at you!”

Jack Everson laughingly stepped hack a couple of paces and posed for inspection.  The elder deliberately drew his spectacle case from his pocket, adjusted the glasses and coolly scrutinized the young man from head to foot.

“You’ll do,” he quietly remarked, removing his glasses and returning them to the morocco case; “now, if you’ll be good enough to seat yourself, we’ll talk over matters until dinner time.  When did you arrive?”

Jack seated himself on the remaining camp stool, a few paces from the happy young lady, accepted a cheroot from his host, and the conversation became general.  Like most Americans, when at home or travelling, Jack Everson kept his eyes and ears open.  He heard at Calcutta, his starting point, at Benares, Allahabad, Cawnpore and other places, the whisperings of the uprising that was soon to come, and his alarm increased as he penetrated the country.

“Worse than all,” he said gravely, speaking of his trip, “one of my bearers spoke English well, and quite an intimacy sprang up between us.  Since his companions could not utter a word in our language, we conversed freely without being understood.  He was reticent at first concerning the impending danger and professed to know nothing of it, but this forenoon be gave me to understand, in words that could not be mistaken, that the whole country would soon be aflame with insurrection.”

“Did he offer any advice?” asked Dr. Marlowe, less impressed with the news than was his visitor or his daughter.

“He did; he said that the escape of myself and of your family could be secured only by leaving this place at the earliest moment possible.”

“But whither can we go?  We are hundreds of miles from the seacoast and should have to journey for weeks through a country swarming with enemies.”