lion. And Captain John Robin
Ross-Ellison was away on an alleged _shikar_-trip across the distant
Border. Colonel Dearman knew his battalion-drill. He also knew his
Gungapur Fusiliers and what they did when they received the orders of
those feared and detested evolutions. They walked about, each man a law
unto himself, or stood fast until pushed in the desired direction by
blasphemous drill-corporals.

Nor could any excuse be found wherewith to evade the General. It was
near the end of the drill-season, the Corps was up to its full strength,
all the Officers were in the station--except Captain Ross-Ellison and
the Adjutant. And the Adjutant's absence could not be made a just cause
and impediment why the visit of the General should not be paid, for
Colonel Dearman had with some difficulty, procured the appointment of
one of his Managers as acting-adjutant.

To do so he had been moved to describe the man as an "exceedingly smart
and keen Officer," and to state that the Corps would in no way suffer by
this temporary change from a military to a civilian adjutant, from a
professional to an amateur.

Perhaps the Colonel was right--it would have taken more than that to
make the Gungapur Fusiliers "suffer".

And all had gone exceeding well up to the moment of the receipt of this
terrible demi-official, for the Acting-Adjutant had signed papers when
and where the Sergeant-Major told him, and had saluted the Colonel
respectfully every Saturday evening at five, as he came on parade, and
suggested that the Corps should form fours and march round and round the
parade ground, prior to attempting one or two simple movements--as
usual.

No. It would have to be--unless, of course, the General had a stroke
before Saturday, or was smitten with _delirium tremens_ in time. For it
was an article of faith with Colonel Dearman since the disgraceful
episode--that a "stroke" hung suspended by the thinnest of threads above
the head of the "aged roue" and that, moreover, he trembled on the verge
of a terrible abyss of alcoholic diseases--a belief strengthened by the
blue face, boiled eye, congested veins and shaking hand of the breaker
of hearts. And Colonel Dearman knew that he must not announce the awful
fact until the Corps was actually present--or few men and fewer Officers
would find it possible to be on parade on that occasion.

Saturday evening came, and with it some five hundred men and
Officers--the latter as a body, much whiter-fa