n--a gesture that set the captain of the Lushkar team
wondering how Cossack officers were armed at mess. Then there was a
scuffle, and a yell of pain.

"Carbine stealing again!" said the adjutant, calmly sinking back in
his chair. "This comes of reducing the guards. I hope the sentries
have killed him."

The feet of armed men pounded on the veranda flags, and it sounded as
though something was being dragged.

"Why don't they put him in the cells till the morning?" said the
colonel, testily. "See if they've damaged him, sergeant."

The mess-sergeant fled out into the darkness, and returned with two
troopers and a corporal, all very much perplexed.

"Caught a man stealin' carbines, sir," said the corporal.

"Leastways 'e was crawling toward the barricks, sir, past the
main-road sentries; an' the sentry 'e says, sir--"

The limp heap of rags upheld by the three men groaned. Never was seen
so destitute and demoralized an Afghan. He was turbanless, shoeless,
caked with dirt, and all but dead with rough handling. Hira Singh
started slightly at the sound of the man's pain. Dirkovitch took
another liqueur glass of brandy.

"_What_ does the sentry say?" said the colonel.

"Sez he speaks English, sir," said the corporal.

"So you brought him into mess instead of handing him over to the
sergeant! If he spoke all the tongues of the Pentecost you've no
business--"

Again the bundle groaned and muttered. Little Mildred had risen from
his place to inspect. He jumped back as though he had been shot.

"Perhaps it would be better, sir, to send the men away," said he to
the colonel, for he was a much-privileged subaltern. He put his arms
round the rag-bound horror as he spoke, and dropped him into a chair.
It may not have been explained that the littleness of Mildred lay in
his being six feet four, and big in proportion. The corporal, seeing
that an officer was disposed to look after the capture, and that the
colonel's eye was beginning to blaze, promptly removed himself and his
men. The mess was left alone with the carbine thief, who laid his head
on the table and wept bitterly, hopelessly, and inconsolably, as
little children weep.

Hira Singh leaped to his feet with a long-drawn vernacular oath
"Colonel Sahib," said he, "that man is no Afghan, for they weep '_Ai!
Ai_!' Nor is he of Hindustan, for they weep,'_Oh! Ho_!' He weeps after
the fashion of the white men, who say '_Ow! Ow_!'"

"Now where the dickens did you get