thed figure whom the serjeant had kicked.
He had stood like a statue till the serjeant had gone into the barracks,
but as soon as the officer's back was turned, I saw him glance round
sharply, and then he appeared to be speaking to the natives near him in
a quick excited way.

From where I lay back, it was like looking at some photograph, every
figure stood out so sharply in the bright sunshine, and I was just
thinking that I did not feel so indignant at what had taken place as I
had when I had first witnessed such a thing, when I half sleepily
noticed that the native had left the group of syces by the open doorway
which looked black on the white walls. Then he appeared to be crossing
the great barrack square, and passed out of my sight, while my eyes
closed, and I was dropping off to sleep, when I started wide-awake again
listening.

The sound which had aroused me was repeated close to the open window,
and it was a sharp hissing drawing in of the breath, as of one in pain;
and directly after the _syce_ who had crossed over to my side of the
square, passed my window, halting slightly, and with a strange
expression on his face, which impressed me even then. As I watched him
it passed away, and he drew himself up, walking as usual, and salaaming
to some one approaching in the opposite direction, and Major Lacey and
Captain Brace sauntered by, while I lay thinking about the syce's
expression, and the patient way in which he had hidden the pain from
which he was suffering. I had recognised him, too, as the tall,
handsome native who had been struck by Barton--a man who, ever since,
had saluted me with a grave, gentle smile.

"It's too bad," I was saying to myself; and then, in my listless
weariness, I was dropping off to sleep again, as I generally did after a
hard drill, when my black servant entered silently, and presented me
with a little packet.

"What is it?" I said lazily.

"No know, sahib. Ny Deen bring, and say tell master dhoby man keep it
and couldn't get back."

I opened the packet, which smelt most fragrantly, and found first some
white flowers, and beneath them, very carefully washed, ironed, and
scented, a pocket-handkerchief.

"Mine," I said half wonderingly, and then I grasped what it meant. "Did
that syce, Lieutenant Barton's man, bring this just now?"

"Yes, sahib. Ny Deen."

"That will do," I said; and I lay back thinking of the morning when I
saw the man come out of Barton's quarters bl