‘Mulvaaney!  Mulvaaney!  A-hoo!’

Oh then it was that we yelled, and the figure dipped into the hollow, till, with a crash of rending grass, the lost one strode up to the light of the fire and disappeared to the waist in a wave of joyous dogs!  Then Learoyd and Ortheris gave greeting, bass and falsetto together, both swallowing a lump in the throat.

‘You damned fool!’ said they, and severally pounded him with their fists.

‘Go easy!’ he answered; wrapping a huge arm round each.  ’I would have you to know that I am a god, to be treated as such—­tho’, by my faith, I fancy I’ve got to go to the guard-room just like a privit soldier.’

The latter part of the sentence destroyed the suspicions raised by the former.  Any one would have been justified in regarding Mulvaney as mad.  He was hatless and shoeless, and his shirt and trousers were dropping off him.  But he wore one wondrous garment—­a gigantic cloak that fell from collar-bone to heel—­of pale pink silk, wrought all over in cunningest needlework of hands long since dead, with the loves of the Hindu gods.  The monstrous figures leaped in and out of the light of the fire as he settled the folds round him.

Ortheris handled the stuff respectfully for a moment while I was trying to remember where I had seen it before.  Then he screamed, ’What ’ave you done with the palanquin?  You’re wearin’ the linin’.’

‘I am,’ said the Irishman, ‘an’ by the same token the ’broidery is scrapin’ my hide off.  I’ve lived in this sumpshus counterpane for four days.  Me son, I begin to ondherstand why the naygur is no use.  Widout me boots, an’ me trousies like an openwork stocking on a gyurl’s leg at a dance, I begin to feel like a naygur-man—­all fearful an’ timoreous.  Give me a pipe an’ I’ll tell on.’

He lit a pipe, resumed his grip of his two friends, and rocked to and fro in a gale of laughter.

‘Mulvaney,’ said Ortheris sternly, ‘’tain’t no time for laughin’.  You’ve given Jock an’ me more trouble than you’re worth.  You ’ave been absent without leave an’ you’ll go into cells for that; an’ you ’ave come back disgustin’ly dressed an’ most improper in the linin’ o’ that bloomin’ palanquin.  Instid of which you laugh.  An’ we thought you was dead all the time.’

‘Bhoys,’ said the culprit, still shaking gently, ’whin I’ve done my tale you may cry if you like, an’ little Orth’ris here can thrample my inside out.  Ha’ done an’ listen.  My performances have been stupenjus:  my luck has been the blessed luck av the British Army—­an’ there’s no betther than that.  I went out dhrunk an’ dhrinkin’ in the palanquin, and I have come back a pink god.  Did any of you go to Dearsley afther my time was up?  He was at the bottom of ut all.’

‘Ah said so,’ murmured Learoyd.  ‘To-morrow ah’ll smash t’ face in upon his heead.’