een out in India?

"'Six years,' I said.

"'And how old, Mr. Harley,' she said, 'do you take me to be?'

"I saw in one instant my stupidity, and was stammering out an apology,
when she went on,--

"'I am very little over eighteen, Mr. Harley, although I evidently look
ever so many years older; but papa can certify to my age; so I was only
twelve when you left England.'

"I tried in vain to clear matters up. Your aunt would insist that I took
her to be forty, and the fun that my blunder made rather drew us
together, and gave me a start over the other fellows at the station,
half of whom fell straightway in love with her. Some months went on, and
when the mutiny broke out we were engaged to be married. It is a proof
of how completely the opium-dreams had passed out of the minds of both
Simmonds and myself, that even when rumours of general disaffection
among the Sepoys began to be current, they never once recurred to us;
and even when the news of the actual mutiny reached us, we were just as
confident as were the others of the fidelity of our own regiment. It was
the old story, foolish confidence and black treachery. As at very many
other stations, the mutiny broke out when we were at mess. Our regiment
was dining with the 34th Bengalees. Suddenly, just as dinner was over,
the window was opened, and a tremendous fire poured in. Four or five men
fell dead at once, and the poor colonel, who was next to me, was shot
right through the head. Every one rushed to his sword and drew his
pistol--for we had been ordered to carry pistols as part of our uniform.
I was next to Charley Simmonds as the Sepoys of both regiments, headed
by Subadar Piran, poured in at the windows.

"'I have it now,' Charley said; 'it is the scene I dreamed.'

"As he spoke he fired his revolver at the subadar, who fell dead in his
tracks.

"A Sepoy close by levelled his musket and fired. Charley fell, and the
fellow rushed forward to bayonet him. As he did so I sent a bullet
through his head, and he fell across Charley. It was a wild fight for a
minute or two, and then a few of us made a sudden rush together, cut our
way through the mutineers, and darted through an open window on to the
parade. There were shouts, shots, and screams from the officers'
bungalows, and in several places flames were already rising. What became
of the other men I knew not; I made as hard as I could tear for the
colonel's bungalow. Suddenly I came upon a sowar sitting on