be brought
from Bombay. Around the bungalow the compounds were simply patches of
the universal sands surrounded by mud walls. No flowers, no trees, not
even a blade of grass, relieved the dull monotony. Altogether the
cantonment of Rohar was an unlovely and uninteresting place. Yet it is
but an example of many such stations in India, lonely and
soul-deadening, some of which have not even its saving grace of sport to
enliven existence in them.

After a visit to the Lines--the rows of single-storied detached brick
buildings, one to a company, that housed the native ranks of the
regiment--where the Indian officers and sepoys (as native infantry
soldiers are called) rushed out to crowd round and welcome back their
popular officer, Wargrave and Raymond strolled to the Mess. Here in the
anteroom other British officers of the corps, tired out after the day's
sport, were lying in easy chairs, reading the three days' old Bombay
newspaper just arrived and the three weeks' old English journals until
it was time to return to their bungalows and dress for dinner.

Early on the following afternoon Wargrave borrowed Raymond's bamboo cart
and pony--for he had sold his own trap and horses before going on leave
to England and had not yet had time to buy new ones--and drove to the
Residency. When he pulled up before the hall-door and in Anglo-Indian
fashion shouted "Boy!" from his seat in the vehicle, a tall, stately
Indian servant in a long, gold-laced red coat reaching below the knees
and embroidered on the breast with the Imperial monogram in gold, came
out and held a small silver tray to him. Wargrave placed a couple of his
visiting cards on it, and the gorgeous apparition (known as a
_chuprassi_) retired into the building with them. While he was gone
Wargrave looked with pleasure at the brilliant flower-beds, green lawn
and tall plants and bushes glowing with colour of the carefully-tended
and well-watered Residency garden, which contrasted strikingly with the
dry, bare compounds of the cantonment.

In a minute or two the _chuprassi_ returned and said:

"Salaam!"

Wargrave, hooking up the reins, climbed down from the trap, leaving
Raymond's _syce_ in charge of the pony, and entered the grateful
coolness of the lofty hall. Here another _chuprassi_ took his hat and,
holding out a pen for him, indicated the red-bound Visitor's Book, in
which he was to inscribe his name. Then one of the servants led the way
up the broad staircase i