e saddle from his charger, gave him a feed of gram or corn,
and allowed a sufficient length of tether to enable him to crop the soft
grass which grew in the immediate vicinity of the running stream just
alluded to, while he rested and regaled himself with some biscuits,
brandy punnee, and his favourite German pipe. He had taken up his
position at the foot of a small tree, with his back against the trunk,
his famous tiger-rifle lying by his side and the hilt of his sabre
within convenient handling distance, for the time and place was such
that these precautions could not, with safety, be neglected. While thus
resting, he sank into a deep reverie; his thoughts wandering back to his
school boy days, in merry old England, ere he had sighed for a sword and
feather or longed to seek the bubble reputation at the cannon's mouth,
or dreamed of scenes by flood and field, beneath the scorching suns,
over the arid plains, or amid the wild trackless jungles of Industan.

Then Vellenaux, the home of his happy youth with its architectural
grandeurs, its magnificent parks and rich woodland scenery, passed in
review like a panorama before his mental vision, but fair as these
visions were, another far brighter rose before which all others paled
or faded by comparison. Edith, in all her glorious beauty, now riveted
his every thought, engrossed the whole stretch of his imagination, and
for the time rendered all else opaque and obscure; for had she not
promised to become his wife, to share with him the varied fortunes of a
soldiers' life, to be the joy and solace of his riper years, and heart
in heart and hand in hand, to glide together, as it were, almost
imperceptibly into the yellow leaf of ripe old age. Again, like the ever
varying pictures of light and shade, his thoughts turned on the
present,--this campaign over, the mutiny crushed out, and the command of
a troop conferred upon him, he would be in a position to return to
England, claim his bride, and thus would the dearest wishes of his heart
be fully realized. From this delightful train of thought, he was aroused
by the cracking and breaking of the dry leaves and brush wood at some
little distance, yet immediately in front of him, and ere he had time to
rise, an enormous tiger, a regular Bengalle, sprang over the intervening
bushes on the open space, within a few yards of where Carlton was
quietly smoking. This sudden appearance was as unlooked for by our hero
as was Carlton's figure