After three or four months of the scorching hot weather had gone by, my friend Strickland, of the Police, saw fit to rent the bungalow from the native landlord.  This was before he was engaged to Miss Youghal—­an affair which has been described in another place—­and while he was pursuing his investigations into native life.  His own life was sufficiently peculiar, and men complained of his manners and customs.  There was always food in his house, but there were no regular times for meals.  He ate, standing up and walking about, whatever he might find at the sideboard, and this is not good for human beings.  His domestic equipment was limited to six rifles, three shot-guns, five saddles, and a collection of stiff-jointed mahseer-rods, bigger and stronger than the largest salmon-rods.  These occupied one-half of his bungalow, and the other half was given up to Strickland and his dog Tietjens—­an enormous Rampur slut who devoured daily the rations of two men.  She spoke to Strickland in a language of her own; and whenever, walking abroad, she saw things calculated to destroy the peace of Her Majesty the Queen-Empress, she returned to her master and laid information.  Strickland would take steps at once, and the end of his labours was trouble and fine and imprisonment for other people.  The natives believed that Tietjens was a familiar spirit, and treated her with the great reverence that is born of hate and fear.  One room in the bungalow was set apart for her special use.  She owned a bedstead, a blanket, and a drinking-trough, and if any one came into Strickland’s room at night her custom was to knock down the invader and give tongue till some one came with a light.  Strickland owed his life to her, when he was on the Frontier, in search of a local murderer, who came in the gray dawn to send Strickland much farther than the Andaman Islands.  Tietjens caught the man as he was crawling into Strickland’s tent with a dagger between his teeth; and after his record of iniquity was established in the eyes of the law he was hanged.  From that date Tietjens wore a collar of rough silver, and employed a monogram on her night-blanket; and the blanket was of double woven Kashmir cloth, for she was a delicate dog.

Under no circumstances would she be separated from Strickland; and once, when he was ill with fever, made great trouble for the doctors, because she did not know how to help her master and would not allow another creature to attempt aid.  Macarnaght, of the Indian Medical Service, beat her over her head with a gun-butt before she could understand that she must give room for those who could give quinine.

A short time after Strickland had taken Imray’s bungalow, my business took me through that Station, and naturally, the Club quarters being full, I quartered myself upon Strickland.  It was a desirable bungalow, eight-roomed and heavily thatched against any chance of leakage from rain.  Under the pitch of the roof ran a ceiling-cloth which looked just as neat as a white-washed ceiling.  The landlord had repainted it when Strickland took the bungalow.  Unless you knew how Indian bungalows were built you would never have suspected that above the cloth lay the dark three-cornered cavern of the roof, where the beams and the underside of the thatch harboured all manner of rats, bats, ants, and foul things.