He did not even trouble to overlook the garrison.  He took his leave, and rode away the long two-day ride to his own place, where a sadly attenuated rent-roll and a very sadly thinned-down company of servants waited his coming.  There, through fourteen hurried, excited days, he made certain arrangements about the disposition of his affairs during an even longer absence; he made certain sales—­pledged the rent of fifty acres for ten years, in return for an advance—­and on the fifteenth day rode southward, at the head of a five-man escort that, for quality, was worthy of a prince.

A little less than three months later he arrived at Bombay, and by dint of much hard bargaining and economy fitted out himself and his escort, so that each man looked as though he were the owner of an escort of his own.  Then, fretful at every added day that strained his fast-diminishing resources, he settled down to wait until the ship should come that brought young Cunningham.

CHAPTER V

Lies home beneath a sickly sun,
Where humbleness was taught me? 
Or here, where spurs my father won
On bended knee are brought me?

He landed, together with about a dozen other newly gazetted subalterns and civil officers, cramped, storm-tossed, snubbed, and then disgorged from a sailing-ship into a port that made no secret of its absolute contempt for new arrivals.

There were liners of a kind on the Red Sea route, and the only seniors who chose the long passage round the Cape were men returning after sick-leave—­none too sweet-tempered individuals, and none too prone to give the young idea a good conceit of himself.  He and the other youngsters landed with a crushed-in notion that India would treat them very cavalierly before she took them to herself.  And all, save Cunningham, were right.

The other men, all homesick and lonely and bewildered, were met by bankers’ agents, or, in cases, only by a hotel servant armed with a letter of instructions.  Here and there a bored, tired-eyed European had found time, for somebody-or-other’s sake, to pounce on a new arrival and bear him away to breakfast and a tawdry imitation of the real hospitality of northern India; but for the most part the beardless boys lounged in the red-hot customs shed (where they were to be mulcted for the privilege of serving their country) and envied young Cunningham.

He—­as pale as they, as unexpectant as they were of anything approaching welcome—­was first amazed, then suspicious, then pleased, then proud, in turn.  The different emotions followed one another across his clean-lined face as plainly as a dawn vista changes; then, as the dawn leaves a landscape finally, true and what it is for all to see, true dignity was left and the look of a man who stands in armor.

“His father’s son!” growled Mahommed Gunga; and the big, black-bearded warriors who stood behind him echoed, “Ay!”