rk at Bhutanese and
the frontier dialects. I'll teach them to you."

"I'd like nothing better, sir. I'm not bad at languages."

"Yes, I've noticed that your Hindustani is very good and idiomatic. I've
been watching you and I like your manner with natives. One must be
sympathetic, kind and just, but also firm with them. Well, I'll try
you. The rainy season will be on us very soon, and then all outdoor work
and sport will be impossible. One dare not go into the jungle--it's too
full of malaria and blackwater fever. The planters and Forest Officers
have to cage themselves in wire gauze 'mosquito houses.' During the
rains you'll have plenty of time to work at the languages."

"Thank you very much, Colonel. I promise you I'll go at them hard."

"You'll have a fellow-student for part of the time. Miss Benson's coming
to stay with us during the Monsoons for a bit; and she has asked me to
teach her Bhutanese, too. She wants it, as she has to deal with Bhuttia
woodcutters and hill folk generally. Well, that's fixed. Goodnight."

"Goodnight, sir," answered the subaltern, as he lay down on the pad and
stared at the stars. He was overjoyed at Colonel Dermot's offer, and as
he dropped asleep it was with a thrill of pleasure that he realised he
would see something more of the girl who had been his companion that
day.

CHAPTER X

A POLITICAL OFFICER IN THE MAKING

The lightning spattered the heavens and tore the black sky into a
thousand fragments, the thunder crashed in appalling peals of terrifying
sound which echoed again and again from the invisible mountains. The
rain fell in ropes of water that sent the brown, foam-flecked torrents
surging full-fed down every gully and ravine in the mist-wrapped hills.
The single, steep road of Ranga Duar was now the rocky bed of a racing
flood inches deep that swirled and raged round Wargrave's high rubber
boots as he waded up towards the Mess clad in an oilskin coat, off which
the rain splashed. He was glad to arrive at the garden gate, turn in
through it, climb the verandah steps, and reach his door. Here he flung
aside his coat and kicked off the heavy boots.

Entering his room he pulled on his slippers, filled his pipe with
tobacco from a lime-dried bottle and sat down at his one rickety table
at the window. Then he took out of his pocket and laid before him a
manuscript book filled with notes on the frontier dialects taken at the
lesson with Colonel Dermot from which he h