demur, Colonel Mayhew's proposal to preface the 'week' with a two days'
house-party at the Chumba Residency;--a picturesque house, whose garden
of lawns, and roses, and English trees falls sheer to the eddying river
below. The two sportsmen had spent a couple of days here on their way
back, the Resident being down in Chumba on State business; and his
suggestion had been the natural outcome of Desmond's keen interest in
the book which was his hobby of the moment.

"I must be down here then," he explained, "for the _Minjla Mela_, a
superstitious ceremony by which we test the luck of the State for the
coming year. An unfortunate buffalo is flung into the Ravee, just
above the rapids; and if he succumbs, or scrambles out on the far side,
the gods will not fail us. But if he lands on the town bank, they
won't trouble their heads about us till next June. Naturally we do our
best to prevent such a catastrophe, in spite of our conviction that the
matter is settled by the will of the gods! As far as I know, the
ceremony is peculiar to Chumba; and this would be a good chance for you
to see it, if you don't mind a trifle of heat, and if your wife would
care to come too, so much the better."

"She'll come like a shot, thanks," Desmond answered heartily.

"Good!--We'll get up a native dinner at the Palace in honour of the
occasion. My little girl has set her heart on the plan, rather to my
wife's dismay. The Maurices want to come too; and we may have to
include Garth, on her account; though I confess I wanted her for
myself! She's worth talking to, that girl. There's a touch of genius
in her composition, and a touch of the folly that's apt to go along
with it; or she would never give the gossips a chance to couple her
name with Garth's. If he is in earnest, so much the worse for her.--We
may count on you, Lenox, I hope?" he added, turning to the impassive
man at his side, whom he had unwittingly smitten between the joints of
his harness.

Lenox's muttered assent was a trifle indistinct, owing to the thick
pipe-stem between his teeth, and rising deliberately, he passed out of
the smoking-room into the wistaria-shadowed verandah, where the
turbulent voice of the river seemed to echo his own mood. It was well
for himself, and for James Garth also, that he ran no risk of meeting
the man at that moment.

The thought of that first fortnight in June unnerved him. For Colonel
Mayhew's words had done more than turn the knife