t foot
in it in all my life!"

Her agitation and distress were so great as to make her utterances only
half coherent; and Ailsa, realizing that this sort of thing must only
perplex Cleek, and leave him in the dark regarding the matter upon which
they had come to consult him, gently interposed.

"Do try to calm yourself and to tell the story as briefly as possible,
dear Lady Chepstow," she advised. Then, taking the initiative, added
quietly, "it begins, Mr. Cleek, at a period when the little boy, whose
governess I am at present, was but two years old, and at Trincomalee,
where his late father was stationed with his regiment four years ago.
Somebody, for some absurd reason, had set afoot a ridiculous rumour that
the English had received orders from the Throne to stamp out every
religion but their own. It was said if British were not exterminated,
dreadful desecrations would occur, as they were determined----"

"To loot all the temples erected to Buddha, destroy the images, and make
a bonfire of all the sacred relics," finished Cleek himself. "I rarely
forget history, Miss Lorne, especially when it is such recent history as
that memorable Buddhist rising at Trincomalee. It began upon an utterly
unfounded, ridiculous rumour; it terminated, if my memory serves me
correctly, in something akin to the very thing it was supposed to avert.
That is to say, during the outburst of fanaticism, that most sacred of
all relics--the holy tooth of Buddha--disappeared mysteriously from the
temple of Dambool, and in spite of the fact that many lacs of rupees
were offered for its recovery, it has never, I believe, been found, or
even traced, although a huge fortune awaits the restorer, and, with it,
overpowering honours from the native princes. Those must have been
trying times, Lady Chepstow, for the commandant's wife, the mother of
the commandant's only child?"

"Horrible! horrible!" she answered, with a shudder, forgetting for an
instant the dangers of the present in the recollection of the tragical
past. "For a period our lives were not safe: murder hid behind every
bush, skulked in the shadow of every rock and tree, and we knew not at
what minute the little garrison might be rushed under cover of the
darkness and every soul slaughtered before the relief force could come
to our assistance. I died a hundred deaths a day in my anxiety for
husband and child. And once the very zealousness of our comrades almost
brought about the horror I