heard one of the men whisper to another as we drew up into line
after a fierce gallop--

"How the young beggar can ride!"

And, to make matters better, Brace came alongside of me, and uttered the
one word, "Capital," as he passed.

I felt the colour come into my cheeks, and a sense of delight such as I
had not experienced for months; and then I gave my horse's sides a nip
with my knees, which made it start, for I caught sight of Barton smiling
superciliously, and supplying the drop of bitterness which kept me from
growing conceited.

I must hurry through these early days, a full account of which would
sound dull and uninteresting, but during which I had grown to be quite
at home on the Sheik, and on another horse which Brace purchased for me,
and which, from his speed, I called Hurricane. For though I found that
I belonged to the fastest and best-trained troop of horse artillery in
the service, from being so light a weight, I had to keep a pretty tight
rein on my new horse, so as to hold him in his place.

Barton laughed at it, and called it a wretched screw; but I did not
mind, for I found out before I had been attached to the corps long that
everything in which Brace had a hand was wrong, and that he bore
anything but a friendly feeling toward me, dubbing me Brace's Jackal,
though all the time I felt that I was no nearer being friends than on
the day I joined.

I had learned from Barton why Brace had been over to England. It was to
take his young wife, to whom he had only been married a year, in the
hope of saving her life; and if I had felt any repugnance to the
lieutenant before, it was redoubled now by the cynically brutal way in
which he spoke.

"She died, of course," he said. "We all knew she would--a poor, feeble
kind of creature--and a good job for him. A soldier don't want an
invalid wife."

These words explained a good deal about Brace that I had not grasped
before, and as I thought of his quiet, subdued ways, and the serious
aspect of his face, I could not help feeling how fond he must have been
of the companion he had lost, and how it had influenced his life.

At the end of a year, we received the route, and were off, to march by
easy stages, to Rajgunge, where we were to be stationed, and a glorious
change it seemed to me, for I was as weary of the ugly town, with its
dirty river and crowded bazaars, as I was of our hot, low barracks and
the dusty plain which formed our training-ground. Raj